In memory of Chloe Rose

Less than two years ago, we said goodbye to our dog Casey. This week, Chloe reached that point in every old doggie’s life where being old just hurts too much. In 1996, my mom found Chloe at the Franklin County Humane Society around Valentine’s Day. She was not small, but she was still a puppy, so we guessed she was about four months old by that point. I’ll never forget the moment she popped out of a box in the middle of the kitchen when I got home from school. “Surprise!” said mom. Oh, what a surprise this funny pup would be!

 

on julie's bed, one of her favorite places (as long as julie wasn't in bed, too)

 

We named her that night as a family. We chose something cute to match Casey. I think for as long as Casey lived, though, Chloe thought that her name was both Casey AND Chloe because when we said “Casey,” they both came running. Chloe was full of energy and could jump like no other little dog I had ever met. We liked to keep the dogs in our big kitchen during the day while we were all away from the house, and we blocked off the doorway with a child gate. Chloe would jump over the gate, of course, but also jump back INTO the kitchen when she heard us coming to the door. My dad eventually built a half-door that she could not jump over, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t try.

 

road trip to arkansas with her best friend casey ("the two toddlers")

 

Chloe’s breed still remains a mystery to us. She absolutely looked like a poodle with her curly, rough hair and pointy nose. But her color changed every few years. She had very dark brown spots when she was young, and those faded as time went on, eventually becoming nearly grey. It took us a while to figure out Chloe’s personality, too. She never liked being picked up. She was not interested in meeting other dogs, and really only liked Casey. Her favorite moment of the day was when the mailman came, when she would bark her head off and paw at the mailbox until we opened it up. She was timid when meeting new people, and really only warmed up to some of our closest friends. But she loved being around us. When we got home, she would run into the living room and roll around on her back like crazy on top of toys and bones. She would grab a toy and start flinging it around the room. She was never really interested in including us in the celebration, but we could see she was happy.

 

always a good girl in the park

 

Chloe did a lot of other things that puzzled us. One time we were out of town and she was staying with someone else at a house a few miles away form our neighborhood. It was Fourth of July and a parade in the area had a bunch of noisy firetrucks. In classic Chloe fashion, she freaked out and jumped the fence. The dogsitters searched and searched and couldn’t find Chloe. Eventually they went to our house just in case, and right there in our backyard was Chloe. We’ll never know if she found her way home on her own, or if someone found her and dropped her off. In any case, she was a lucky dog.

 

who wouldn't want to scratch that fuzzy head?!

 

She lived a long, lucky life. She had hip problems for a long time, which made her really dislike being picked up. We tried to respect that, but she was also just too darn cute! About a year ago, her hearing started to go. Then her eyes. Then her teeth started falling out. Then this week, her legs really stopped working and she stopped eating. She lived as long as she could. The thing that makes me happiest about the end of Chloe’s life is that she perked up for a couple months of summer. She was not seeming very happy during the cold winter, but my parents got her hair cut in the early summer and said she was like a brand new dog. She hopped around the backyard garden (as much as you can hop at age 15) and relaxed in the sunshine. That’s how I’ll remember Chloe: hopping in the sun, smelling the flowers, and staying close — but not too close! — to the family that knew just how to scratch her head in the perfect place. Thanks for being our funny, curly girl, Chloe.

Chloe Rose Barbier Bularzik: November 13, 1995 – July 15, 2011

Try it, you’ll like it!

I’m not a big lover of things. I don’t like to collect or pile up much stuff. I want to be as flexible and lightweight as possible. But sometimes, things come around that are just awesome and make life simpler. And when I discover these things, I want to share them! Here are three things that I have found or have been given to me lately that I just love having around.

Reusable snack/sandwich bags: I have always felt guilty about throwing away plastic, both for waste of money and sadness for the earth. I used to try to save Ziplock bags as long as I could, because really, putting pretzels in a bag that I had previously used for Oreos can’t be that bad, right? But that technique can’t last as long as these things. My first set of Lunchskins was given to me by my sister for Christmas. I’m not sure she even realizes how much these have changed my life. I haven’t used a Ziplock bag since! I have a sandwich bag (pictured below) and two snack bags. They are washable and last forever. You can find these on their website or at stores like Container Store. I will never buy plastic baggies again!

lovely photo from the creators' website

Universal travel adapter: There are probably lots of versions of this out there, but I love mine by Kikkerland. It was given to me a couple of holidays ago by a good friend who knows all about my travel habits. It is small, sturdy, easy to figure out, and works in more than 150 countries. I never have to worry ever again about what kind of electrical outlets will be in my next destination, because I have them all right here!

thanks for the image, kikkerland

Ankle-high rain boots: Rain boots have always seemed like a good idea to me, especially as I am currently living in one of the wettest cities in America and may very well move to another one in the near future. But those tall, heavy chunks of plastic that I see on most people never appealed to me. Doesn’t anyone make a decent looking rain boot, maybe one that doesn’t ride all the way up my leg? Yes, Bogs does. Some of their stuff is expensive, but you can search on discount websites for the same thing. I got my $100 boots for $35! These boots are amazing because they are warm and snuggy, completely waterproof, lightweight, and SHORT. I love them so much that I even wear them when it’s not raining.

my darling boots from bogs

Hope you’ve enjoyed my bit of advertising. I wish I could profit from these shout-outs, but of course I do not. I only wish I could have thought of the reusable snack bag thing earlier. Think think think, what else do we need to be reusable?!

Doing things that matter

One of the writing prompt questions from WordPress this week is “how long could you live without the internet?” Even though I’ve been using the internet regularly since I was ten years old, I could live without it for a pretty long time. I think its best use is cheap communication like through e-mail and skype (but I would be much happier receiving phone calls and written letters). The truth is that the less time I spend on the internet, the better my day is. When the computer stays off, I have time for things that matter.

Take a minute to write down all the things you would do regularly if you had the time. Go!

practice piano

study Chinese

yoga

sew my own clothes

cook fresh dinners daily

watch movies

take my dog to the park

go swimming

There’s never enough time in a day to accomplish everything, but I think cutting down on time online can help. Graduating from graduate school can also help big time. Note to anyone considering grad school: you will be able to keep up maybe one activity like this during school. Maybe. But probably not.

friends at the park matter a whole lot (fall 2010, schenley park)

 

I think, therefore I’m happy

What is happiness? This article in the Guardian caught my eye because I like the idea of living in the moment and finding happiness in the simple things. No matter where you are in the world you can find something useful or interesting, even if it’s small or seemingly insignificant. But the authors of this study on happiness take it a step further. They say that letting your mind wander off the task at hand makes you less happy:

“A human mind is a wandering mind and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”

I agree that finding value in everyday moments makes us happy, calm people. But is happiness simply the satisfaction of eating a big meal, taking a long nap, or watching a pretty sunset? I think there is a difference between satisfaction and happiness, and I think this study is caught somewhere in between the two. Happiness is not being satisfied all the time; it’s deeper than that. I think wandering minds give us the deeper happiness. My wandering mind showed me where to go with my life. My wandering mind helped me recognize what made me unhappy and how to change those things. My wandering mind thinks of questions and challenges I never even knew existed, making me enjoy ideas, debate, and problem solving at a level I never thought possible. Wandering minds inspire. Maybe my wandering mind made me annoyed, frustrated, or even sad at times, but without it I think my happiness would be superficial satisfaction. Without our wandering minds, aren’t we just bodies going through the motions?

dream big

 

Hooray Malang!

Finally, the destination we’ve all been waiting for: Malang! Coming to Malang was the whole point of my Indonesia trip. Kasihani’s home university is Universitas Negeri Malang (UM), the state university. Malang is full of schools, and many of them have specialties like technology or engineering. UM is the education university, so the science majors will be science teachers and the English majors will be English teachers. By coming to UM, I have a much better grasp on the topic I am writing about: training teachers to teach English in Indonesia. So I sat in on classes, toured schools, taught a few lessons, and hung out with English students. My days were packed literally from sunrise to sunset. It was a blast!

university library

It was finals time at UM, so one of Kasihani’s classes had to do “microteaching” for their exam. That meant a nearby middle school let them borrow some students to teach for an hour. Since I was there, I got to teach them, too. The winner is always the Hokey Pokey: they loved it! The more challenging teaching job came the next morning: teaching 20 four-year-olds “I’m a Little Teapot.” I’ve never pictured myself teaching little American kids, much less kids who only speak a tiny bit of English. I was exhausted after only an hour with the little ones; I don’t know how teachers do it! I was able to confirm that teaching kids is not my strength or my goal. Whew. I also did some lessons at an English tutoring center and a bilingual (English/Arabic) high school.

teachers and students from microteaching

it's blurry, but i am the tall one (for once) and we are doing the little teapot motions!

After doing my school duties, I had the chance to spend a few days with some of the university students. Kasihani asked her student Ninga to be my guide for three days. She was so generous: showing me her campus, introducing me to her friends, driving me around on her motorbike, bringing me to a park in the mountains, and helping me pick out Arema t-shirts. (Arema is the soccer team of Malang that just won the national championship. Arema!!!) Ninga is an English major and she just got a job offer to teach English in Brunei next year. She is going to be an excellent teacher, and now I have to plan a visit to Brunei!

Ninga's awesome floormates in the women's boarding house (note my t-shirt. Ninga is the bottom right with the peace sign)

Malang is in the higher elevation part of East Java, so that means it is much cooler than other coastal parts of Indonesia. Ninga and her friends decided to take me on a day trip up to Batu, a city even further up into the mountains. Eight of us traveled by four motorbikes an hour from Malang. I was slightly worried that an hour-long motorbike ride would mean dodging trucks and other crazy motorbikers. However, it was actually pretty tame, and my biggest issue was my butt falling asleep. In Batu, there are lots of parks and forest areas for people to relax. We went to a place called Selecta, which is a combination park, garden, waterpark, and amusement park. There are mini motorbikes for kids to ride, waterslides curving through the trees, and huge plots of vibrant flowers. It was really cool to be among Indonesians taking a break in the cool mountains for the weekend.

five of us at Selecta's gardens

After wandering around Selecta, we drove to a restaurant that lets you catch your own meal. We went fishing for about an hour, caught too many fish, threw a few back secretly, and then had the restaurant cook our meal. This is probably the freshest fish I have ever eaten. Also, I think I could recognize the fish that I caught when it came out covered in spices and lime. Anyway, the fish was delicious, and it came with some really spicy mango salad. I told everyone at the table that I would cry if I ate it, but that just made them want to see me eat it even more. I ate it, nearly cried, and they laughed. Why do I always go to countries where everyone has such strong spice tolerance? I look like a wimp!

fishing for our lunch

When I had to say goodbye to Ninga the next day, I cried. We had only known each other a few days, but we spent every waking hour together. I was with her when she went to the mosque to pray, when I tried (not very successfully) to teach kids how to sing “Twinkle Twinkle”, and when I watched “Angels and Demons” with Indonesian students at an English conversation club. I was very intrigued by the students’ choice to watch a movie about the Vatican in the largest Muslim country in the world. I admit I was surprised at the openness that came from the students as we discussed spirituality, extremism, and the search for truth. My time in Malang was my first time living with Muslims, and I think it was really valuable for me. It’s not that I didn’t respect the religion before; it’s that it felt very far away and strange to me as an American. Now, it just feels like another way of going about your day.

before digging into our fresh fish

Love to everyone in Malang. ♥ I will be back!