Also, I am VERY confused about the money part. I have read / heard a lot and understand that people make real money from Second Life. This would be great! However, I don't really "get it."
Although there is "game currency" (Lindens = L$), they actually have "real money" worth. The bottom line is that there is no way to get L$ except by doing something that has real "worth" to someone. I.e., there are no NPC's that you visit for credits and few games that you play to get L$.
The people who _really_ make a lot of money do it by somehow creating a product or a service that other people are actually willing to pay for. Examples are making really beautiful clothing, that others are actually willing to spend the equivalent of 50 cents or a dollar to acquire, in the virtuall world. Or creating a "gadget" that is useful or fun.
As a newbie, who likely doesn't know how to "create" things of worth to others yet, your contribution to others is by merely being a presence on their property, because that boosts their "traffic" rating, and makes their shop, or whatever, show up higher in the search ratings. That's why there are "camp chairs" and "lucky chairs" -- they pay you to just be there, because they will benefit from the higher traffic.
In the long run, camping and lucky chairs got rather dull (for me anyway), so I started looking for ways to create things, which I happen to find fun. But you can get plenty far with freebie items.
I'll try to find links to threads about making money. At least one excellent one is in the forums for SL, which you need to log in as your SL character in order to read.