Mark Doherty wrote:

New clothes? Why? Ranma wears his red silk shirt and black pants when he goes
to school as a guy, so why not a girl? :P

I have to admit, I've disliked this aspect of such stories too, the insane
need to dress Ranma as a girl when he's stuck as one. Hell, most of the
girls I know almost never wear dresses anyway. Sure, it might be different
in Japan, but it's still unpalatable to read.

Your girls don't have uniform school dresses.  The real issue here
is, does Ranma want to go to gym class?  If he does, then he can
either use the girls locker room, which they will only tolerate
if he officially defines himself as a girl, or he can wait until
he gets homes to shower and change, and be a little smelly (and
noticeable) in the meantime.  

Where was Ukyou during all of this? She wasn't mentioned once in all these
chapters. She should be trying to comfort Ranma, being the good friend (and
best cooking/looking/cutest/kindest fiancee he has :).

That's because at that point in the manga story(I wouldn't know about
the anime, I presume it's the same), she hasn't appeared yet.

It's the same.  She doesn't show up until the third season, while
the story's still in the first.  It'll be interesting when Ukyo shows 
up.  It'll probably take her a while to even be sure that Ranma is the 
same person, and she may not even forgive him without the prospect
of marriage.  She might instead take Ryoga's role as perennial
adversary.