school was awesome this morning. i felt like i had unlimited patience and an abundance of joy, so thank you for your prayers!
chuy is taking more of the responsibility of school, which is the way things need to keep going. the two of us spend the half hour before school starts setting up and talking about his plans for the day. i give him ideas for how to supplement the material - how to make it suitable for our class, how to help the kids stay interested, how to make sure everyone participates - stuff from my 'bag of tricks' that he is still developing.
one thing i've figured out about my relationship with chuy is that we're both in positions we've never been in before. i spent the last 4 years working with at least one (if not 2!) mentor teachers who watched my every move and gave me tons of feedback, both encouragement and constructive criticism. now i'm the one who has ideas to share and feedback to give, and it's a new and unfamiliar position for me to be in. now that i've realized this, though, i have felt more comfortable being that mentor teacher for chuy. (not the best one out there, that's for dang sure, but i'm trying.)

becky's starting to pack - she leaves tuesday! she's going back to maine to try to raise some more money and then she's off to language school for 4 months, starting in january. i'll definitely be speaking less english when she leaves. that's not a bad thing, though!