Thank you

I was doing FACS (flowcytometry) at the FACS room in the ground floor. In that room, there was only me and my Mongolian colleague who is currently in her first year. She was using FACS Callibur while I was using FACS ARIA (all these are names of FACS machines).

I was looking at the outcome of the current experiment when out of the sudden, she spoke to me. She said 'Adi, thank you!' Huh? In my mind, I was trying to recall what I have done in the past 24 hours that I deserved the word thank you. Since I couldn't think of one good reason so I asked her, 'For what do I deserve that?'. She said, 'In this lab you are the only person I can speak easily to.' Ahh...I thought, maybe due to her limited Japanese and maybe because we could communicate in English that she was feeling that way. So I told her that it would change once she improves her Japanese language. She said, 'No, it is the personality that makes me feel comfortable talking to you than talking to any other people in this lab'.

There was a mixture of happy and sad feeling after hearing those words coming out from her. I felt good because she liked me and appreciated me but at the same time it also revealed how lonely she was. I never thought a small conversation in the corridor or a chat during lunch time meant so much to her.

That 'thank you' was definitely one of the best thank yous I have ever received. Believe me, we may have said thank you so many times that we didn't really mean it. But a sincere thank you like that can touch people's heart. At least, it made my day.