Congratulations on discovering python.  It will serve you much better
than php, or any other scripting language.

Skipping to the punch-line, you should dive into python before you
dive in django:

http://diveintopython.org/

You will have a very much more easy time if you learn how to debug a
script in the shell (rather than running a program endless times with
different print statements), use introspection, slice lists and basic
OOP.

I also learned php first, inorder to add a shopping cart onto my
friend's website.  However, I switched to this other scripting
language, python, because it could do things php cant.  For instance,
my first project in python involved capturing keyboard input before
windows heard about it.  Then I kept discovering amazing things python
can do that php cant.

I helped write a non-sequential optical ray tracer in python.  When it
needed to be faster there were several libraries for writing C code
directly in a pythonic syntax.  Python has hooks into everything, like
optical character recognition, electronic music
sequeuencing/generation, serial port i/o.  Gnucash, an opensource
quicken like accounting package, has python bindings.  when there were
no decent free unRARing programs available, I discovered python could
do it easily. And if you decide you need to use the parallel vector
processeors of your nvida graphic card's onboard multicore GPU, there
is a package for that: PyCuda.

And they all weave together seamlessly.  Django could use PyCuda in a
custom form validation method to determine if an archived folder of
pictures you have uploaded has an image of a car with a decipherable
licence plate.

Anyways, python is great, and by extension I expect Django is also
(just learning it myself).

good luck,
Elliot