Valentine's Day, Dissertation, and a Great deal

Lot going on the last couple of days, so I haven't been able to really write. Jamie and I both finished Chapter 1 of our dissertation. It is only a rough draft, but it is an accomplishment for us. We are on our way to completion and both are at least on the tracks even though the track is miles and miles long.

On Valentine's Day, we have a technology staff development. Jamie presented in a break out session a tutorial on the use of a Smartboard in secondary classes, and I assisted in one of the sessions. Afterwards, we both worked on our dissertations, but went out to a nice little restaurant here in town called Ricocco's for our Valentine dinner. It was great food!

This week, the students are taking the ITBS standardized assessment. Many school systems in the states use this test and QSI also uses it as a measure of student knowledge on basic skills. It is somewhat unfair for some of our students as some questions specifically mention things in the US. They still do quite well the cultural bias.

We are very excited about my parents and niece coming back with us to travel around China next summer. We booked their plane tickets and received an AMAZING deal on them. Saved about $500 per ticket.

Here is another video. Gary and Kathy walking on the Great Wall of China at the Mutianyu section around tower 15. I have figured out the whole video process, so I can start providing more of those. We aren't going anywhere until March 13 when we'll make another trip to Macau for the weekend. We'll then travel to Bali, Indonesia for our spring break at the end of April. Tons of pictures and videos to follow for that.

All for now. Hope all is well. Someone drop me a comment and let me know if these videos are showing ok back home. They are a little slow to load here, but the Internet isn't as fast. Enjoy!