I guess I'm probably the only one that thinks an STi may be a little much for someone with your lack of experience behind the wheel. Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling you a BAD driver but for someone that has not had a good amount of time behind the wheel and has no idea how to drive a stick to jump into a $30k high HP, almost monster of a car seems to be a bad idea. The amount of power an STi brings to the table + the over confidence I'm sure the idea of AWD is giving you + little or no manual experience is going to equal a bad experience either for you or for whoever you injur. I recommend that if your dead set on a Subaru you should either save your money for now and buy a regular '06 WRX or even save a few more pennies and find a nice low mileage 04/05 regular WRX. Learn it's in's and out's, learn the tranny, learn to drive, learn what the in & outs are of AWD and then when your ready seeing as it seems you have access to money and work, upgrade the WRX here and there for more power. The WRX may not be a beast like the STi right off the lot but it offers plenty of power/handling compared to other cars in it's category and it is easily modified down the road when you've learned to handle her/drive her like she was meant to be.

Just my opinion, probably go in one ear and out the other but it just seems that the STi is alot of car for someone with your lack of experience and someone looking to learn.