damn, one would think that for as supposedly innovative program as this, there would be an easier way to make a curved plane... ah, well thanks

Hey guys-

I've had SketchUp for a few days now and have enjoyed fooling around with it. However,
I have run into two major annoyances.

 - I don't know how to create a curved face. To clarify, imagine you have two congruent curved lines next to another, and want to create a curved plane. You draw lines between the ends of both lines, but Google does not fill it in because it is curved. How is it done? (Please bear in my mind I'm hardcore new to 3D modeling programs while answering.)

  -After I've been working on something for a while, and there are a lot of shapes and blocks and such, there is a long load time after every time I draw a line. I'm fairly sure it's not the fault of my computer-2.1gHz 2g of ram... so why the slowness?

Any help would be greatly apppreciated- cheers

THANKS