lost in japanese

I successfully studied most of hiragana over Thanksgiving break, which I found relatively easy. However katakana has me overwhelmed. Also somewhat overwhelmed by the new RTK 1 & 3 deck that I began, which has helpful kana/kanji readings of all the kanji. I want to read the readings, but also want to get through the reviews reasonably quickly. There's no point in trying to sound out all the phrases for "one" and spending 5 minutes on it!

I did go over the トトロ parallel text while listening, and definitely could follow along a lot better with the dialog.

I guess my goals for now are to plow through katakana, get more familiarized w/ hiragana, and find a comfortable pace with the RTK deck. These are all building the foundation; when I finish the first 555 cards of RTK, I'll start on the grammar deck and hopefully start on the next level of my studies!

Yesterday I was realizing that in all the work and studying I'm putting into this, I haven't spent a cent on anything. The electronic flashcard software, Anki, I use is free, all the different flashcard decks are downloaded for free. The websites and forums I go to for learning resources (Reviewing the Kanji, Tae Kim's Guide) are also free, J-doramas are free online, and even when I get better I have more free links to reading materials for free (blogs, free books, my roommate's books and books at the library). I can even converse w/ my Japanese roommate, and ask her questions, for free of course!

The only thing I ever spent money on was a textbook when I signed up for a class a year or so ago, which ended up getting cancelled. I gave the book away on Paperbackswap since I never used it.