Bitcoin is a risky buisness, and beginners make mistake. At least you learnt something!
And lets just say that those few days worth of bitcoins are not that bad. On my side, I might I lost about 4 months of mining if Mt.Gox goes under
I learnt too. Should not have trusted the Gox.
The real lesson is never to trust your coins with any pool, online-wallet, exchange, or any other place than your own, secure wallet on your own computer. Wallets were created for a reason. The big exchanges are big targets for thieves, hackers, scammers, etc. Not to mention, there is always the possibility of incompetence and/or malfeasance on the part of the pool/exchange/online-wallet owners. Which appears to be the case with MtGox.
Eligius is great because it does not hold coins for you, they are mined straight into your wallet. This may be a little less "user friendly" to people who do not want to set up a wallet, but it is really the most secure option. Mined coins can never be "stolen" or "lost" from Eligius because they never belong to Eligius in the first place. (Although I suppose Eligius could be hacked so that the next mined block goes to some arbitrary address...)