exporting clips from imovie?

So I just got my macpro and one of the main reasons is I have been dying to do some video editing with all my minidv footage from vacations and stuff and im just sick of premiere.

FCP is on the way, but in the mean time I wanted to see what kind of capabilities imovie had and also get a head start on importing all my footage onto my computer. So I start a project with imovie, hook up my sony handycam and click import and it imports the tape dividing it into clips...like windows movie maker did...now how do I save all these clips, which I have now renamed to reflect their subject, as files on my hard disk that I can either watch on their own, or re-import to imovie or FCP for compilations?

I tried just dragging all the clips into a folder on my desktop but im not sure if it worked. I think it maybe didnt save all the names I applied and also I think I lost those clips when I deleted them from the clip bar thingy in imovie