John Plocher's video: Flight Lesson - Forward slip flaps and first landing

Poor audio (the camera's intercom audio jack had serious static noise issues, sorry) I've been taking private pilot lessons for the last month - today was my 6th lesson! This is a video clip of my first unassisted landing, using both a forward slip to lose altitude and full flaps. TL;DR: It was rough and poorly executed, but ultimately successful. Post-flight debrief: We just spent the last hour introducing and practicing pattern work at 5,500', "landing" at an imaginary airport with a field elevation of 4,500' somewhere over Coyote lake. We flew the pattern, executed checklists, trimmed, flared, stalled and simulated radio calls to announce our position and intentions of the CTAF.... A good time was had by at least one of us :-) On previous lessons, we practiced straight in no-flap stabilized landings from about 10 miles out and 3,500' AGL, with my CFI demonstrating the actual round out and flare to touchdown; I was getting comfortable with the predictability and reflexes associated with a stabilized approach where power=altitude/decent rate and pitch was trimmed for airspeed. This time, we were 4 miles out and still at 4,000' when we were cleared to land. I performed a prolonged forward slip to lose altitude without gaining too much airspeed (but didn't notice it creeping up anyways...). At 3,000' and ~3 miles out, I pitched for a much slower airspeed, added flaps and slipped off another 2,000 or so. Other than getting a tired leg for holding the left rudder in, the slip did what it was supposed to do, and it was relatively easy to hold the centerline - at least until we started hitting the afternoon ground turbulence and a 10kt gusty crosswind... Complications (for me) on this flight included 1) I was using flaps for the first time, 2) we were ~2'000 feet higher than earlier approaches, and 3) we were using a prolonged slip to catch the PAPI glide slope My reactions were off - mentally I was getting further and further behind the airplane, but didn't notice. By the time we hit short final, I hadn't really caught up and wasn't effectively anticipating or preparing for the "next" things. Time, for me, had drastically sped up, and things were becoming a mental blur. Hindsight-me says that this non-stabilized approach with an unfamiliar configuration, a non-standard procedure and new-to-me crosswind gusts was an almost-disaster: Four strikes that should have resulted in me calling for a go-around, just like we had been practicing (at altitude) for the last hour... Watching-the-video-me also notes that I was oblivious to the airspeed there at the beginning, that the attitude indicator might not have even been installed for all I used it, and the ADM required to be a PIC is extremely hard to put into practice as a student in real time... Still, I landed the airplane, on the runway, and felt I was in control - though, admittedly, on the ragged edge there for a bit...