I HIGHLY recommend taking the Tx MTC course. I will look up the link later and post it for you, i can't remember it off the top of my head. $235 dollars for the course, best money i've spent(in my motorcycle world anyways).
Take it slow, don't push yourself, but challenger yourself. Don't be ashamed of baby steps.
I have a coretech jacket, of course i am a woman, but i feel safe in my cortech. I would say check craigslist, but just becareful. I bought my shoei helmet on CL for 50 bucks. Needed a new lens, but it wasn't terrible when i got it.
Congrats on the great deal on the bike
White ninja's are so pretty. I bought a 2012 Green ninja 250R. it had 12k on it when i bought it, it's been roughed up a little but i'm okay with that. we only paid 1500 so we seriously couldn't pass it up.
I'm about an hour/hour and a half north of houston.