First solo!!!!

In the private pilot's world, the first solo is quite possibly the biggest milestone in your training.  It's the first time you get let go on your own.  You have to accumulate at least 10 hours in the plane with an instructor and a certain number of landings.  At CFC, they also require that you know how to get to another airport in case while you're in the air on your own, and the runway at CHO gets shut down, you know how to get down.
Last Thursday morning, I woke up at 7am to go out on my checkride flight with the head hauncho instructor.  Basically, he flies with you and tests your basic skills and quizzes you with some emergency procedures (what to do if your engine dies right after take off: if you don't have enough runway left to abort, set your glide speed and find a field!).  We did some practice take-offs and landings too (I graduated out of slamming-stage).  Landed safely, we parted ways and I went off to class planning to return that afternoon for some practice-area time with my instructor and was told to bring an old t-shirt.  Swell..
That afternoon, I spent some time practicing TO/Ls and when I was nearing the end, my instructor told me to taxi back.  He then signed off my logbook, said "do 5 TO/Ls, have fun", and shut the door on his way out.

Crap.  I'm on my own.  This is my first solo.

So, I taxi back out to the runway.  Taxied to the end.  Radioed the tower, asked for departure permission.  Everything's going hunky-dory.  Throttle up, take-off.  Follow the pattern to land again.  Land, and definitely was not a slam, in fact, one of the best landings I've ever done.  THEN it really hits me that I'm alone.  Do a mini-freak-out as I get everything ready to take off again.  But this time, it wasn't a "ohmygod-i-might-crash-this-thing"freak out.  It was a purely gleeful "i-can-fly-a-plane" freak-out.  From there on out, I haven't looked back.  Hopped out after 5 TO/Ls, after a minorly difficult experience of being routed back out of the landing pattern and back in because too many jets/props were all coming in at once (the tower control guy from that night was EXTREMELY understanding and helpful in getting me out of the mess and back in to land, and is my hero).  Got my shirt tail cut off and posted on a wall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_solo_flight#Traditions).  High-fived by a bunch of people.  High-fived over the phone by Momma and Poppa Duckie.  In general, best afternoon.

There's not much else I can say about my first solo.  It was the most rewarding and fulfilling experience of my life.  Everything else just seems trivial once you learn to land a plane by yourself...