First-year teaching

Well, some of you might know that I'm teaching an 8th grade class this year. I've never taught before and this is a very new experience for me. A lot of teachers say that their first year teaching is always the hardest. That kind of makes any problems in the class better. I think though that the class is going pretty well for me. We're talking about economics and for a project I've been having them assemble some Coach knock-offs for the last couple weeks. They've been tracking the profits that I've made on ebay from them, and as a group project they're going to plan my trip to the Bahamas to stay within the budget of the profits. Sure, they don't pay attention sometimes and complain about all the work I make them do, but that's normal for 8th graders, right? I know I have a lot of ways to grow as a teacher, but at least I'll have a lot of nice, quiet time in the Bahamas to come up with some good strategies.