Every Friday at 10:30 AM we (my research group) have a scheduled research meeting. Each member of the group is supposed to review the work they've done since the last meeting. These meetings would be completely unbearable if not for the presence of one extraordinary human: Xingbo Zhao.

Here's a photo of Xingbo:

I have described Xingbo to pretty much every single close friend I have and never has anyone failed to be enchanted by even a description of this creature. Xingbo has a naive quality that has nothing to do with the fact that he is recently immigrated from China -- I'm sure he was weird there too.

One of Xingbo's most outstanding qualities is his attentiveness which is at times taken to extremes. If you're giving a presentation or merely discussing something, Xingbo's preferred listening position is no less than 10 cm. from your face and if you're standing up, well, so is he. This is funny at first but can easily drive you bat-shit-insane after the sixth or seventh time. He drove this man bat-shit-insane:



Besides that, Xingbo is an alright guy, but as I've mentioned before is super naive. One of the visiting post docs, Lorenzo -- an Italian fella -- got it in his head that he was going to teach Xingbo a new hand gesture. You've probably seen the gesture before as it is a pretty universal symbol, but since I've failed to find any pictures on the interweb I'll illustrate it for you with a simple animated gif:

So this is kind of what it looks like:

Which is of course super hilarious. By the time Xingbo started doing this and asking "What's it mean?!" I was doubled over and nearly crying with laughter, but then Dr. Rapp walks in and Lorenzo shouts,

"XINGBO NO!!!!!"




My life rules.