Mom: Will do tonight at Lifegroup. :)
Zach: Well, in class it was different than my actual consensus. He said a particularly interesting thing that spurred me on - that perhaps the "whole" is more real than its "parts". To just be consistent with that idea, I kind of ordered them from greatest to smallest, or from "whole" to each of the "parts", starting with, of course, the Creator. of the "whole". And then the last two are the abstract ones that I had no idea what to do with. :)
God, universe, desk, atom, love, the idea of the desk.
You asked, "Why does this matter?" The immediate answer is, it doesn't. Questions about whether your desk is more real or less real don't really matter. Even if the desk were not real, we would still treat it as if it was, because we can't really do otherwise. But the questions you had to answer are questions designed to lead you someplace else. And as someone who has kind of paid his dues, I can tell you that the place you are going is important.
The questions you asked ("What does it mean to be 'more real' or 'less real'") are the exact questions you are supposed to ask. Philosophy, from the outset, sought to show how much we take for granted, and how much we assume any time we take an action. For instance, when it comes to politics, everybody has an idea of what justice is, but what we call justice looks very different depending on the situation. We assume it, but hardly any one can give a satisfactory definition. Perfect circles don't exist in nature (mathematicians can tell you this), but we all have an idea of what a perfect circle looks like. Why? Is it something abstract and metaphysical, or did we just make it up? In ethics, we ask, is it right to sacrifice one to save many, or is it right to harm someone in hopes of saving many (in the last few years, this has become a very hotly debated question, even by people who know nothing about philosophy). In politics, we have wide ideological differences as to what we think a good society looks like. While it's true that politics are temporary, don't matter in the long run, and that the vast majority of the little quibbles we have day in and day out are pretty inconsequential, political theories have affected literally millions of lives (look at men like Stalin, Lincoln, Reagan, etc.). So, in that sense, it does matter what works and doesn't work. I always point to politics when people say philosophy is all abstract. 
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, Jean-Jaques Rousseau, Karl Marx, Machiavelli, et al., have affected countless lives, and their theories, or mixtures thereof are in place all over the world.
We pretty much covered every pointless question imaginable; "Are thoughts physical or something more?", "Is it 'rational' to believe in God or say that He's "most real", or is that all faith?", "What does it mean to be?", "What is an 'idea'?", etc.)
Well, it is important if you think thoughts are merely physical phenomenon or the product of an eternal soul. You may not feel the need to argue about it, but calling the question "pointless" is kind of insulting to anyone who believes in the soul.
The question about God strikes me as extremely relevant, because I've had to wrestle with that in my own life. I'm not sure I ever believed it was 100% rational to believe in God, but I did believe it more than I do now. And it has altered the way I live my life. It's not pointless.
Questions of existence are strange, at first, but it's something very relevant. Just look at the abortion debate. The debate centers around what it means to be a person. Questions of being are really questions of dignity. Is the essence of who we are just a specific conglomeration of matter at one point in time, and if so, why do we try so hard to defend it? At first glance, that doesn't seem any more rational than going to war to defend a stone or a beetle. We insist on the dignity of life. Why? These questions may not affect you directly, but they are relevant to our society, and we talk about them all the time.
I'll leave the question about ideas to Plato, because I think I know where that was supposed to lead you. I'll just say that Plato has influenced Western Christianity more than most people know. Part of the tension between the Western and Eastern Church centered around the Platonic influence over the West. Anyways, Plato is good enough to at least give him a shot.
Anyways, I think you're approaching it with the right attitude. Asking the question, "Why does this matter," is a good question. You should try and answer it. You're asking the right questions. I hope you'll give it a fair chance.
Have one of your nurse friends look at your hands! Looks like some kind of rash.
About your philosophy class, at least you have your brother and Prof. Amy to bounce your many many questions to come over this semester.
Will be a fun semester!