Welcome aboard cskn
We're not all, bitter old players...
Do yourself a favor and keep running those missions instead of mining.. Nothing bad comes from mining, but the kill missions your currently at gives you more insight in the game mechanics
Mining kills the fun in the (early)game for a lot of players - i've been mining like few others and still do from time to time, but only because i have more than 1 acc, and have access to some of the more rare materials (profitable ones) - materials are the lifeblood in eve, nothing can be build/produced without.
My suggestion if you want to run some missions and build up some assets.
Get some standing with caldari state (keep running security missions) - take up the cosmos chain whenever you feel like it, quite fun, and takes you trough some aspects in the game you need to learn about as a freshman - besides if you actually finish the chain your left with several billions in your wallet, a shitload of bp's and a load of standing (you'll also get some standing with the Amarr's, working for caldari).
There are cosmos lines for all 4 player factions in the game.
Link for a decent guide to caldari cosmos :
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16401872/Cosmos-Missions-101That being said - there are loads of stuff to be done in eve besides the mission running
Industrialism - mining - production - invention - research bp's - planetary interaction (pi) - (R&D agents, free isk more or less) - marked buy/sell orders - contracts aso -
Become a pirate, as all new players tend to aim at, 1/100 actually gets the skills to make this work for em.
Join a corp after your liking, they are all over - just make sure you get what you need, talk to them, check things like corp tax aso, make sure you have the same agenda. There are a lot, and i do mean a lot of different corps to choose from.
WH living, even more free isk to be found here.
0.0 corp, join a large scale corp, become part of an alliance, learn the mechanics in pvp, op's - loads of fun, but also some downsides for the newer players, since you'll experience being war dec'ed, hostile takeovers aso - on the bright side, you'll also be part of these things

There are some decent 0.0 corps that gives new players the opportunity to join one of their training (sister )corps and show you the "moves"
Sry for the long list, could go on forever really.
Ask and thou shall get the answers...
Fly safe
/B