First Impressions: Japanese

I chose to study Japanese because I have always wanted to visit Japan.  I really love cooking Japanese cuisine.  In addition, Japanese fashion greatly interests me.  I have a few Japanese fashion magazines at my house, but they're all in Japanese, so I was never able to read them.  Finally, I adore Japanese architecture as well as Japanese gardens.  I am excited about being able to understand (or at least attempt to understand) Japanese recipes, books, and other media in its native language.  Also, this is my first time learning a language that is not written using the Latin alphabet.  I thought it would be an adventure.

It seems like most everyone in my Japanese class either has a background in which they are fluent in another Asian language, or that they have studied Japanese in some capacity before this class.  Many people in the class already knew hiragana before we learned it, so I feel slightly behind some of the time, even when I learn material as it's presented.  Overall, although this class has been an immense amount of work, I'm enjoying how quickly I feel as though I'm learning bits of Japanese!