Getting Deeper Into Socks (And More Deeply Confused)

The sock class I'm taking turned into more of a knit-along, because I was the only one who signed up it.  The instructor, who owns the LYS, is knitting her own pair of socks while she helps me along.  As I've already said, learning to knit on two circulars was a little awkward and challenging at first.  The beginning of the ribbing was a real bugger, but I eventually got the hang of it.  Once I had knitted two inches of ribbing, I did an inch of just stockinette that went very quickly.  That's where I left off yesterday when I said that I wouldn't do any more sock work because I needed help and didn't think I was going to get to the LYS until Tuesday.  Well, I jumped the gun and went yesterday instead.  This isn't me, but I'm fairly certain I had this expression on my face both during and after the session:

Before socks I would classify my knitting skills as maybe beginning advanced.  I'd stuck to generally easy things (the majority being scarves), with some cables, increasing, decreasing thrown in a little bit here and there.  This sock stuff, however, is blowing my freaking mind so far.

So far in sock knitting I've learned how to:

• knit in the round on two circular needles at once. 
• turn the work and knit on the other side.  I didn't even know that was a thing!
• pick up stitches.
• knit a short row.  I still don't know what this even means, but the woman teaching me told me I did it...
• use stitch markers.  I've never really used them for anything other than marking the beginning of a row before, but they are important in the sock because for one color you do one thing right before the marker, and for the other color you do something totally different right after the marker.
• slip slip knit.  She did the first one of these, but they are part of the sock and I will be doing this stitch today for the first time.

And I'm not even to the toe yet, which has some knew stitch I'll be learning, as well.  SHEW!

Don't get me wrong.  There are parts of the sock I really enjoyed knitting.  The heel flap was a lot of fun and went really quickly. Turning the heel was mostly fun, because she just read to me what to knit and it went quickly and it was different with all the turning.  But rearranging the stitches and the gusset... what?  I still don't know what happened there because she did most of it, even though she tried to claim I did it myself. I'm on to the foot part now, where every other round on one needle I knit the last two together before the stitch marker, and on the other needle I do the slip slip knit right after the marker.  Again:  SHEW!

Here's my progress after yesterday:

This thing takes concentration.

I promise not to talk so much about socks with the next one.  The first one, though, needs to be properly documented!