order of search in load-path

[Baloff <washdc@wash.edu>]

Hello

I learned that emacs searches directly in the order in which they
appear in load-path, the first 2 items in my case is

load-path's value is 
("/usr/independ_packages/cedet-1.0pre3/common/icons"
"/usr/independ_packages/cedet-1.0pre3/semantic/wisent"
...

isn't better that it searches its default Lisp directly first. and if
so, is this variable customizable and where?
I could (setq load-path (cons or append "some/path//lisp" load-path)) but this
is the main thing I am trying to avoid, playing around with .emacs to
move items around in load-path variable.

second point:
I do not have any statement in my .emacs which adds/appends to the
load-path. how did the current value happened to have those 2 items
first in the list?

in that variable, I must have more than 20 paths, is that ok, or need
to collect all whose ".el" in fewer dirs and load those only?

thanks 

>  LocalWords:  setq ok dirs