So okay, wow.

I have a Wacom tablet! It was a birthday gift from someone very, very special

It's the Bamboo, one of the smaller ones, but compared to the $10 KB Gear one I had before that I found twice-marked-down at a toy store, this is astonishing. And I'm not even done setting it up!
The biggest thing I'm noticing now is how it requires a much lighter touch. The old tablet was a bit fatiguing to use--you had to press fairly hard for it to register a touch and it wasn't pressure-sensitive--it was either drawing a line or not. If you adjusted the sensitivity to make it a lighter touch, it had a hard time deciding if you were dragging the pen or not and you'd end up accidentally clicking things as you moved around or inadvertently dragging objects. But this one seems to be perfect. I also like having the pen as a separate part rather than attached by a cord.

I am a happy girl right now. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon and be able to post some art!