That part about learning to patch fast really hits home. I saw a video a while back from a drywall guy who said the biggest mistake people make is not cutting a clean square before patching. If you just slap mud over a jagged hole it will crack later, every time. He showed how to use a scrap piece of drywall as a backer behind the hole, screw it in, then mud and tape over it. Let me tell you, that trick saved me when a door got slammed into a wall at my place. Took maybe twenty minutes and you cannot even tell it happened.