Updates
So today I've made a big step and really looked at the structure of buddypress. I sat down with a web developer and figured out how referencing works and where my changes can start to come in. I really have to thank Brady Candell at Fly Communications for his incredible help. I spent the rest of my time attempting my first php tweak which was to get the profile information to now show up on the blog page. It took quite a while but I eventually got it to work :-) you can take a look :
Eventually the blog page will become the profile page because profile pages will consist of every post that user has made in chronological order. I also mocked up a little diagram of how I see the buddypress files working together.
Today I figured out that most of my tweaking will be done with the files in the theme folder because that is how the information is displayed. I don't really need to go in and change the functions that were written I just need to change the way they are referenced and displayed. So cool! If you'd like to look around the current prototype the address is http://www.hilaryfenton.com/converso and you're welcome to join :-) 'Night everyone!

