I thought so, too, but maybe not so much here.
Ah. I started taking classes at my university maybe five years ago? Since then I've continued to study through the university and independently, as well as going abroad twice. Although I've graduated now, I still practice on my own and with friends. We used the Yookoso! textbooks (they run pretty expensive), but there are some good phrase books you can study out of as well (can't remember what mine was called right off). Best thing I would suggest is that you find people to practice with, and you start learning how to write early on. Writing and reading will help you develop your speaking etc. Start with hiragana, move to katakana, and /then/ go to kanji. After you've done a good amount of that, find some easy manga to practice on & do a little translating.