Getting on with learning Drupal

About 2 weeks in and I am working on two Drupal sites. I started with the site for the short course our college runs at cor.robonline.id.au. log in is (teacher/teacher) I have created some pages and added some modules that looked interesting. I particularly like the front page module as it gives an initial message and instructions for anyone who finds the site and then has a different front page for students once they log in. The events module also looks great. What you see is about 8-10 hours of work. I admit it is pretty primative but I have a plan to get the site to where I want it to be over January. The main things I want to do are to 1) rewrite the single page for each of the three topics into book pages, 2) tidy up the themes including the banner and primary links, 3) get the events/calendar working so it can send email messages to students at certain dates, for example, when an assignment is due and 4) I don't really want students contributing to the content areas so I want tot get the blog working so they have a place to contribute Forums will probably do the same thing. I have put this on the back burner for the next few weeks for two reasons. The first is that I am creating another site for a paying client (see below) and the other is that I am courting another real estate company who runs a large training division and I am angling to get some work with them.... hmmmm. The other site gms.robonline.id.au is for a client I have worked with for some years. His current site - gmslegal.com.au is built in cold fusion. It isn't very flexible and I don't want to learn something like CF so I am creating his site in Drupal. To date, I have customised the site theme and started gettting the framework of the site up. I am pretty much up to the stage of adding the initial content to the public area (not logged in) so I need that up and running by Jan 9th. The staff area will replace the current intranet and include things such as office manual and procedures, staff social club pages, and whatever other stuff comes up. One thing I need to ask is "what do I have to do to acknowledge the original theme I used as the basis of my current theme." Well thats about where I am at this morning. I would love your feedback and any tips you have to help me enhance what I am doing. Rob P.S. Sorry I haven't been on a live session as yet but will try hard for early January when I am off work for a few weeks.