はじめまして。「友馬　三世」と申します。どうぞよろしくお願いいたします。
Now for those that can’t read that yet: Nice to meet you. I’m called Yuuma Sansei.
As some of you may have guessed from the name I chose to use here, I’m a third generation Japanese-American. Unfortunately, I was unable to learn any Japanese from my grandmother while I was growing up since I’m estranged from that side of my family. It is twice as unfortunate because I most likely would have been learning Kansai-ben since she came from Kyoto!
I began really learning Japanese in the fall of 2007 when I started a Conversational Japanese class at my local community college. I took both levels that were offered there, and then had to transfer to another community college a bit farther away (having to wait through the summer and fall semesters) to take Japanese II there at the start of 2009. After waiting through the summer, I continued by taking Japanese III. While I had excelled in the previous classes, Japanese III nearly broke me. It was after that experience that I decided that I had gotten all I could from learning the language at a college. Since then, I’ve been a bit unfocused with my learning. I’ve been taking a weekly class at the local Jodo Shinshu Buddhist temple, where I’m part student and part TA since I’m at a sort of intermediate level while the other students are just starting out. I’ve made it my goal this year to learn all the general use kanji. I even got myself a daruma to symbolise my goal. In any case, here are my goals:
Be able to speak with my grandmother in Japanese when I find her (if she is still alive).
Be able to read visual novels, manga, and light novels in the original language.
Be able to watch Japanese TV and movies (especially anime) without dub or sub.
Be able to listen to Japanese music and understand the lyrics.
Be fluent enough in Japanese to possibly live in Japan.
Be fluent enough in Japanese to try and track down my distant relatives in Japan.

There are plenty more things I could probably list, but this post is probably long enough already!