get a good book as soon as you can download as many free tuts as you can. Spend more time on them than the chat sites. Ask any question no matter how stupid.
careful of your object history, lights in scene, static channels, ect, keep the geometry clean as you can (I can't yet but trying). The free tuts are important. I would be buying tuts but I'm still trying to work out how from Australia with no credit card. I sent an e-mail to Levin today and waiing for a reply on that.

have fun but remember to turn off the computer from time to time and go visit the real wotld (occasionally ).