TA or Infotainer?

Several years before becoming a TA, I taught English in Mexico. It was my first real teaching experience and after a while I realized I had an issue. I wanted to see smiling faces and hear laughter in my classroom. To me, that meant that we were having a successful class; they were happy. I remember one class in which I had a sour-faced business man who obviously took himself very seriously. I couldn't get him out of my head and it affected the confidence I had in the classroom. I felt that the whole class must feel like they are wasting their time and that he's the only one who's showing it. I knew that it was irrational but it was hard to not focus on the unhappy-looking students. Going back to school helped a lot with this, because I realized that I wasn't always a happy camper as a student and this often (but not always) had very little to do with how I felt about the class or the instructor. I still carry this issue with me a bit...wanting to see smiles, hear laughter, but now I realize that I'm just a small part of their daily lives and that they are in my class for lots of different reasons, then it's a lot easier to just let go, be myself, and do the best that I can to teach them something and leave the entertaining to someone else. Fortunately, I find if I relax and keep the students actively participating, then it's easy to do both.