Holy s**t, I'm a teacher

I just taught my first solo literature class, and it was fantastic! I mean, I have a lot to learn about teaching, and some of the students were fidgety for some of the class, and some of the boys were frankly kind of asshole-ish, but despite all that, I loved it. Absolutely loved it. The kids are wicked smart and they have a lot to say about Lord of the Flies so far, though it does take a little prodding. I have to figure out how much prodding from me is mean, and how much is necessary.
I was given this gifted students class on Monday and had two days to prepare a lesson plan and to wrap my head around the whole concept of teaching for 90 minutes without a co-teacher. There was a teacher before me who taught The Road by Cormac McCarthy (MacCarthy?) and so the structure of the class has been set, in some ways, for the students; however, I was not given any clue as to how the class should be structured beyond a sample lesson plan. In other words, they told me to teach the class, gave me the book, gave me a roll book in Korean and told me where to be and for how long. That's it, folks. But at the risk of sounding Pollyanna-ish, I loved the challenge. I feel like my brain is being used in the way I trained it to be used during all those years of undergraduate and graduate classes. Yes, mom, the degrees are finally paying off. I have so much more to say, but I'm going for a celebratory beer!