Wrenching I don't mind at all, I've rebuilt pretty much everything on my Mustang and done a fair amount of work on my truck. I'm definitely not scared to tear into something to fix it. And if something breaks, then it can sit in Lot 40 until I can fix it, as long as I can go home at the end of the semester, I live on campus so it's not that big of a deal for it to sit a while.
I don't have a trans temp gauge on it yet but that's one of the things I'm going to do as soon as I get a paycheck. I think the only reason the first transmission went out was because I was just wailing on it at soggy bottom. That's when I first noticed the problems. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on this one and not let it get hot. That is until I put a stick shift in.