My study of Japanese

A little bit of background.

My introduction to the Japanese language came through the so called "loan words". These are English words or words of other languages that are used in the Japanese language, but the pronunciation is changed to conform the Japanese phonetic rules. I first learned certain brand names, like McDonald's becomes Ma-ku-do-na-ru-do, Ba-ga-kin-gaa, some foods: Ha-tta-do-gga, ham-ba-gaa, and other random words like su-ppo-tsu-kaa.
I was intrigued by how the pronunciation of these familiar words were so drastically changed to "Japanify" them. Soon thereafter I bought a book called "Japanese for fun" it was a phrasebook written in "Romanji". As I went through the book I encountered phrases that are very similar in English but completely different in Japanese. I assumed this was due to grammar rules and immediately purchased a grammar book. Bad move, it is completely overwhelming. Though I saw that studying the language was going to be and ever greater challenge than I ever had imagined, I was hooked enough to keep at it. I decided to look around online for peoples experiences to see how they had learned Japanese. I ran across a website www.alljapaneseallthetime.com I like his method, though I am not applying it as extremely as he prescribes. I decided to learn the Japanese writing systems first.

Here are the books that I am working through:
Lets Learn Hiragana by Yasuko Kosaka
Lets Learn Katakana by Yasuko Kosaka
Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig

There is plenty debate about which of the kana to learn first (hiragana or katakana), I went with hiragana.
Also, there are many Kanji books out there, had purchased two in an effort to get started, one listed every possible reading and meaning of the 2045 Joyou Kanji and was way too much to tackle, the second was written by Japanese authors, had an On readings in Katakana, a Kun reading in Hiraga, a basic meaning and example sentences written in hiragana with kanji already covered, the book only introduced 300 kanji, but is not useful to me at this point because it assumes a level conversational japanese (to understand the example sentences). When choosing how to tackle the Kanji I think it is important for the learner to first understand that people learn things in very different ways and it is important to know what works for you and what doesnt. I found that "Remebering the Kanji" is a book that presents things in a way that works with my way of learning things. I highly recommend reading at least the introduction (the intro and the entire first third of the book are available online in a pdf as a free sample).
If only I had the discipline to actually do the work...