beginning japanese

I am excited to learn Japanese.  Today is the first week of our new class, which we will have five days a week!  My friends seemed to be much more impressed with my learning Japanese than Spanish.  The foreign characters give it a certain "wow" factor that Spanish can't compete with.

My interest in japanese (nihongo) started in 1999 when my family and I moved to Tokyo for my father's work.  I only lived their for about a year and a half, but it was quite a learning experience.  I become moderately good (for an american fourth grader) at japanese while I lived there, but have since then been slowly forgetting everything I learned, so much so that I could not understand even the instructions on the placement exam here at nd.