Thursday, April 28, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Visiting Changsha Today
Today we are taking a bullet, high speed train to the Hunan Province to visit a school in Changsha. (On Saturday! Are the American kids paying attention? That's 14-15 hour days during the week AND school on Saturday!)
Their website is here: http://changsha.newchannel.org/ You'll need Google Translate to read the page.
This has been an amazing experience--and we still have two more days. I'll post some pictures later today/tonight of what we see in Changsha!
-Mike
iPads in China!
More pictures and a Digital Story!
This is a story shared with you by the StoryKit iPhone application.
Sent from my iPad
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Sightseeing Day!
Today was a sightseeing day around Wuhan. We had Steamed Buns for breakfast, visited the Wuhan Provincial Museum, saw an enormous lake, and walked around the downtown area. Tomorrow, we visit several other classrooms, including traditional Chinese classrooms, and classrooms that are being taught by American teachers. Then, we get to meet with administrators at Central China Normal University. Tomorrow night we have American Pizza---though our food here in China has been pretty good. Lots of steamed dumplings, rice, and noodles! On Saturday, we travel by bullet train to another school in Changsha to visit with their students and teachers!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Now in Wuhan
We are in Wuhan today at the Number One High School associated with Central Normal China University. We got to see the students (all 6000 of them!) doing group calisthenics and we got to visit a classroom that has the first iPads in a Chinese classroom in the whole country. The students were using them primarily to play word games to develop their English fluency as well as investigating other apps for educational purposes. I'm going to try and blog about this later tonight, but wanted to check in with some pictures here while I have a moment. If you are trying to contact me by Facebook or Twitter, please just email me: mikefisher821@gmail.com I can only access Facebook and Twitter in the Faculty Office and even then, it's inconsistent. More to come, stay tuned...
Monday, April 18, 2011
More from Shanghai!
We left Shanghai today and flew to Wuhan, where we'll be working this week with the No. 1 Middle School associated with Central China Normal University. I'm attaching a few more pictures and will upload more as the week goes on and the internet connections are stable!
Things are good here. I'm still getting used to eating with Chopsticks and being immersed in a language that I understand none of, but it's fun, and we're having a blast and enjoying all that we are taking in!
More to come! Love to all!
-Mike
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Breakfast in Shanghai, a Digital Story (ish)
This is a story shared with you by the StoryKit iPhone application.
Sent from my iPad
In Shanghai!
My connectivity is not great here, but we just found the Apple store, and there is WiFi! Love to all and I'll post more when I can! Sent from my iPad
Friday, April 08, 2011
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Digital Stories on the iPad
Lily and I are playing with an iPod app called StoryKit. (It's free in iTunes)
We created two stories tonight:
and
You can click on the sound icon to hear Lily read them!
Monday, April 04, 2011
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Lily April Update:
Lily saw her doctors this week as a follow up to the last MRI. (Which we had previously posted about briefly...)
The neurologist, neurosurgeon, and oncologist all work together and we get to see them all at once at these appointments. They are an incredible collaborative team!
They re-affirmed what the surgeon told us just after the MRI, that it looked, in his words, "WONDERFUL." The area where the tumor was removed was still pulling in contrast, but he said that it looked better than before. The small piece of whatever is still there seems to have shrunk significantly and the surgeon indicated that it is most likely just scar tissue.
The fluid on her scalp has COMPLETELY been absorbed, so there's no planned future surgery at this point. Thank God! She doesn't have to wear her skull cap anymore! Also, at the beginning of March, she came off of ALL seizure meds. We've noticed significant improvements in her mood and personality since coming off those medications! She's losing a little hair around the scar area on her scalp, but you can really only tell if I'm the one responsible for combing her hair. If Liz combs it, you'll never notice it!
Right now, she's about as normal as they come, and then some. She has 5 imaginary friends: Lily #2, Tiny, Shiny, Don, and Buddy. She is VERY creative and loves playing with her friends at "Grandma Janet's" (Kristen Marchiole's Mom). She loves to draw, she loves technology, and she loves her rhino. She says "I love you" a lot, and always follows it with "Can I Have ______?" She's becoming very expressive and wants to know what everything means. This week's words were "cooperation," "compromise," and "comfortable." (Just a coincidence that they are all "C" words!)
She's trying to decide what she will be when she grows up, and we have it currently narrowed down to a: Chef Princess Gardener Paleontologist.
We will continue the cycle of MRI's every 3 months for the next year and a half. Our next hurdle is the ophthalmologist as we get her eye checked out. Right now, that's the only significant issue we're having. Before the surgery, they warned us of all of the possible complications that could result from the brain surgery, and the laundry list of issues was very overwhelming. To be in the spot we're in now with only having nerve damage in her eye is almost a relief. We can deal with that. She can see perfectly fine, but her eye "wanders" when she focuses, and she seems to have lost some depth perception. Her appointment is later in April, and hopefully we'll find out more when she's examined.
I know we say this often, but it can't be said enough: Thank you for all the thoughts, prayers, and support. Thank you for loving all of us, and thank you for loving our Lily. We appreciate every single one of you...and feel so blessed to have each of you in our lives.
-Mike, Liz, and Lily (and Lily #2, Tiny, Shiny, Don, and Buddy!)
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