DOU

Afec-X 2009–Chapter Navendu

星期天, 八月 23rd, 2009

Navendu Page, an Indian Ph.D student majored in Ecology, was in Afec-X too. He is the guy I like most in this course. Deli always calls him as “我们家印度小帅”，which is “my Indian Handsome” in English. I like this nickname, better than “babydog”.

smile like a kid, by Orr

At the very beginning, due to my poor oral English and his accent, we can hardly get into each other. I still remember cause our birthdays are very close–his is Jan 23rd, mine is Jan 22nd– we have to introduce each other to the whole people (it was that silence game, remember?). He wrote down his name on my notebook, and his major, institute as well. Otherwise I cannot understand only by speaking.  So, it’s a surprise and lucky I found I still keep that page after we left XTBG, hoho.

At the very beginning, he looked like this image in my mind.

But when time goes by, as familiar with his accent, I found him actually a knowledgable and interesting young man, who is always glad to offer help-especially stealing mangos with Orr. Navendu is always curious about plants, animals, and food. However, not so skillful in using chopsticks, he always prefers spoon and definitely will forget it in the tray and get turned to other side of the table. Everytime when I think about this, I cannot help myself to laugh. And sad to know he has a 15-year old fiancee at home, although he denied it as a joke.

Moreover, he is a nice and thoughtful friend. When we faced bottleneck on our indepent project, he encouraged us and gave kindly suggestions. Those gentle encouragement, as to the point, made me feel not that depressed.

Actually, he is a funny guy, and pretty too.

The character which makes him as a scientist most is that he is interested in his major, although he already knows every plant’s Latin name, and is familar with every kinds of species. There is one example about his concentration of his major. The last day we spent in Kunming, everyone just focused on shops along the street, but Navendu still found several trees which he was interested in.  And when at field, each time when some argument happend on one species, people would call Navendu for judge. The second important character involves the earnest and suspicion. He is serious about every data we collect, every assertion we make. On the very first field work, Limestone Forest, I remembered he kept making sure wheter these fallen leaves were from the tall tree we could not get. And it turned out that the fallen leaves we collected was from another tree. Then Chuck and he tried every way to get leaves of that huge tree. And finally they did it! Besides these remarkable characters, he has his own deep and wide opinions on Ecology, definitely. I believe he will be a successful researcher in the future.

all kinds of Navendu

When we said Goodbye at Kunming, he promised to call me and he kept it. After came back from XTBG, I got a serious cold (luckily it’s not H1N1) and some other problems. I wrote him an e-mail, telling him the unhappy things. Last night, he gave me a call from India! It was really touching and encouraged when hearing his voice from India.  As Nayana said in his blog:”Hundred words does not give pain. But true friends silence makes more tears in heart.” It is far far away between us- he is in Pune, the west of India, while I am in Beijing, the northeastern part of China. However, I am sure the connection between us will never break down. And the friendship will not fade.

my favorate pic-Navendu and me.

Above is one of my favorate photos. I don’t know why but this one makes me feel eternal. Maybe one day in the future, not far away, we could meet at XTBG, and take picture together at this place again. Or perhaps some kind of international conference, who knows. And the smiles on our faces will definitely be the same: gentle on his face, and, maybe Peter could give more suitable words here, exciting or happy on my face?

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Next chapter will be finished after August 31, cause that day I have the GRE writing test and I have to prepare for the arugments and issues. I guess next chapter I will write something about Xia Hua, my dear roommate. Hoho, I have many interesting secrets about her. Then I plan one person each week. It’s really a big project, but, not so hard as the virtual forest we did, and a lot of fun, right?

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Tags: Afec-X, friendship, navendu, XTBG
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