Time for another wonderful Mulder blog. Sarah is doing well in Africa and all I have to say about that is "only 10 more days!!!" I have been keeping very busy with work, which has been nice. I'm so exhausted by the time I hit the pillow that I barely notice that my bed is lonely. I have been really enjoying teaching at the high school. I'm turning the most notorious classes around and making lots of friends. This photo is evidence to why it is a bad idea to fall asleep in Mr. Mulder's classroom... especially when he brought a camera that day. I am very proud of the progress my students have made in science. More and more I have students coming for extra help after school and administration commenting about the good reports they are receiving from both students and staff. They are even overlooking some of my more unorthodox behaviors. One day I had my whole class walking backwards down the hallway to try to get a grasp on the concept of "frame of reference." Yesterday I was even immortalized in a student made comic book, which I believe may be the highest honor a teacher can receive.
I did take a few days off last week and flew down to Florida to see my parents at The Villages. As much as it was "Disney for the retired" I had a lot of fun. I got to go fishing with T.J., my college room mate, the first day there and man did I catch a big fish. T.J. caught it on film.I think the angle of the picture makes it look smaller or something, because that thing must have weighed 4 lbs. easy. My dad, Tj and I had a great day on the river, even if the fish weren't biting all that readily. Since the last time I really saw Tj, he acquired a wife and three daughters, but he hasn't changed a bit. He's still a great guy who will do anything for ya. I hope to make it a habit to go down to Orlando and do some fishing with him. I have to go at least once more, because he wants to meet the crazy woman who would marry his old room mate, and that crazy woman would like to meet him too. Another great thing about heading down to Florida was seeing my sister and her family. It's always a great thing to spend some time as the uncle. I promised Sarah some blog photos of some healthy kids, so here they are... in their pajamas.
All in all life is going pretty good. It's very busy, but in 10 days my wife comes home on the same day my spring break starts. We are then disappearing into the woods for a while, followed by a trip up to Michigan. Since Nathan and Heather's wedding is approaching, the bridal showers have started. My job will to be to keep Nathan and Bo company during the event, and gosh darn it I'm going to give it my all!

I was reminded of the quote today and I can't help but think that it applies to everyone I have ever met. I think it would make a fitting title to my post

"Work Like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt and dance like nobody is watching"

Greetings everyone, I wish I could say that I am blogging from Malawi but alas the internet is too slow to upload anything and this comes by way of my own personal knight in shining armor with high speed internet!

Here in Blantyre the big news today is that one of the two cell phone companies in the country burned to the ground taking its mainframe with it and leaving more than half of Malawi without any means of communication. The buzz around town is that the rival phone company set the fire because more people were switching to that service. Scandal, Arson and Corporate espionage in Malawi!!! You wouldn't think that cell phones are big here, but the dark continent is not so in the dark. Often I'll be seeing a patient, lying on the bed with literally a rag for a pair of pants and no shirt on next to his mother who is wrapped in the traditional Malawian swaths of fabric, faded with years of wear. And I am always amazed when I hear the distinct tune of fur Elise escaping from the shopping bag that doubles as a purse, suitcase (more rags) and lunch box. Everyone has a cell phone, only very rich people have a land line.

Malaria season is in full gear. Every bed in the children's ward is taken and on my ward we've added half beds. The 4 year old boy in bed 11 1/2 sleeps on the floor between beds eleven and twelve. His name is Madalitso and he happens to be my favorite patient right now and not just because he loves to run around after hours with no pants on but he is a very happy and outgoing kid. Yesterday he was nice enough to draw me a 10' by 12' picture of a "gallimoto" or a cab on the floor of the ward with his new box of crayons. All 12 families in the room had to leave for an hour while his mom mopped it off the floor. I wish I had my camera for that. All the mothers sleep on the floor next to the beds or sometimes they sleep sitting up on benches resting their heads on their child's bed. Sometimes they have other kids with them. Madalitso's little brother Hardwork (yes that's his name) has been on the ward for the whole time his big brother has been hospitalized.

My favorite part of the day is when I hand a kid a mosquito net and say "see you in a month Madalitso, watch out for the mosquitoes" My least favorite part of the day is when they don't make it to that point.

There is so much I wish I could share with all of you but to sum it up, pineapple and passion fruit are in season, it rains at 3pm most days, Malawian people are really into shoes and HIV sucks.

Hello all. Yeah, it's been awhile since the last blog. It's March already for crying out loud. Maybe it's because not much goes on without my wife. Maybe it's because I have no time to sit down at my computer. Since I started my new job as a science teacher, I've been going non-stop. I didn't realize it would be so much work and be so draining. It's now Saturday morning and its the first time I've had to relax in two weeks. My plans are to do absolutely nothing, and I love it. I also love my new job. I have got a great bunch of kids. This photo is only one of my 5 classes of freshman. Yeah, those are 9th graders. They are making them bigger these days. They were all very excited to take the picture (especially when they heard that Mrs. Mulder would be seeing it in Africa) but as you can see the guys still have to keep up that cool look. The guy in the front is Andre. He's my class clown. I'm pretty sure Andre's going to be a lawyer, because he will always try to argue a technicality in order to avoid schoolwork. I have a total of 90 students each day and I love every one of them. I'm not saying I get along with all of them or that some don't drive me up a wall. I'm just saying that deep down my kids have great potential and I love trying to show it to them. Sometimes getting them to see it is the hardest part. This past Thursday was parent teacher night. Six hours of parents cycling through different subjects. It was fun to meet the parents of some of my kids, but unfortunately only a small fraction of the parents attended. A lot of parents don't seem to care, and it always shows in their students behavior. As much as I was embarrassed each time I found little notes all over my locker the next day, I'm very lucky to have parents that always came to my parent teacher nights when I was in school.
Well the coffee is ready, so I'm going to start my busy day of drinking coffee and wishing it was spring time.