photography to the next level

i guess you all know how i love taking photos of anything and anyone... and now i am bringing my love for photography into the next level :) i recently bought canon rebel xsi and i cant wait to test it, i'm so excited learning how to manipulate my new toy, not my dream SLR, which is a canon mark III but still it's an SLR, whihc i always consider a professional camera... can i now call myself professional photographer since i now have SLR? LOL dream on. but one thing is for sure, i need to take photography classes and learn how to use SLR because for the longest time i have been using a point and shoot camera, so i have to learn DOF, exposure, etc. i am actually planning to enroll in one of the photography schools that can fit with my schedule. if i could enroll in New York Institute of Photography, that would be awesome! well i just hope that having this new camera, i'll have better photos :). what i really want to learn is bokeh, well i can sort of do that already in my point and shoot camera but what i want is to be able to capture portraits, i have been struggling making a good portrait shots and i want those poster magazine type pictures where the face of the subject is sharp but the bakcground is blurred, and also i really find black and white photography fascinating, i know there are a lot of things that i still need to learn, but for now i need basic SLR manipulation tutorial, and the rest will follow.