Just an update on how my stocks are doing: Everything is up, for now.
From what I have calculated, everything is in the + form when I began, which is really nice. The real question is whether or not I am doing better than if I would have put those stocks into an index fund.
The trouble is that the broker I am using charges me to keep track of my losses/gains. I would otherwise have to manually calculate my total gains then, which I really don't know how/cannot do. So, is it worth the money for them to do this? Is there a program out there somewhere for free that will do this for me? I don't know.