hey betty bump, your story is just like mine, except i was using s.h.i.t.t.y components. i bought my first fixie from a friend who rode for three years on a sovos hub (yeah, yeah, i know, whatever), and like three weeks into riding it, the arse-quality cog stripped the threads. so i scrounged up some money, bought a (somewhat) better hub (suzue basic. yeah, yeah, i know*), and built up a new wheel from the old rim. was my first wheelbuild, too, and i used sheldon brown's step by step instructions, and it was a whole arseload of fun.

*some people don't have the money to be super finicky about their components...