J'ai un gros rhume

I am really, really sick right now.  My first bad cold of this year has caused me to miss two days of school already.  So what better thing to do than practice an instrument that doesn't require that you breathe?  I have had my ukulele for about a week now.  First thing:  tuning it was not easy.  I was so afraid I would break it, I had to ask a viola player to tune it for me.  After that, I went to the library and got every book that was there about learning ukulele, although so far youtube has been my best resource.  I have been told by more experienced people that it is easiest to learn chords first.  So, for now I am trying to learn some basic chords and strumming techniques.  Another thing, the day I got my ukulele people started warning me that sometimes you can get calluses from playing guitar and that it might happen with ukulele too.  This has not happened yet and I hope it never does, but my fingers do hurt after playing it.  You have to press down on the strings very hard.  Another example of my ignorance concerning string instruments:  I had to ask my mother if you put your fingers on the frets or between them.  No worries though, these little problems have been sorted out.  I will keep practicing chords for now, but I really want to be able to play just one song really well!