I don't have flash, but I really want to start doing animation projects. From experience at school, I know it can be really time consuming. So I've a couple questions:
1) What are the benifits of being an animator? (Like, can you get paid?)
2) Does flash cost money?
3) What should I be exporting projects as if I want to post them online? (In class we just exported it as an avi)
4) How far have any of you animators gotten with flash?

1) You can get paid for graphics design, yes.
2) Only when you buy it legally.
3) Avi works fine if it's just an animation. If there's any user interaction at all, export as a .swf or .exe.
4) I've made a couple of small-midsized games with it.

If you were to submit your work to kongregate, you'd be in the running for up to $2500, if your work was considered to be the best that month/week