you find joint 8 by going to the right top hand screen. and type joint 8 then press enter. This will select joint 8 and show you where it is.

Ive seen all riggin tutors for digital tutors and they always drum it into people to Freeze transformaitions as its so so important when rigging.

Do you know what freeze tranformations means? Before you constrain a control curve to a joint, you freeze it by first snapping it to the joint by holding v + mmb. Then go to Modify > Freeze Transformations.

If this doesnt solve your problem then im baffled.

If you watch the whole of a Digital Tutors rigging training kit, and take your time, there should be no mess ups as DT produce amazing tutorials.