Burning out. Getting headaches. Hating Japanese. BAH!

I picked up a few new resources including “Living Japanese” which is a DVD book combo with interviews of Japanese people covering various cultural topics and verbatim transcripts of the responses. I’m using it to practice listening and it’s murder!
Still plugging away through スパイダーウィック家の謎. I’m using it to practice reading and it’s murder!
Occasionally writing (comparatively short and absolutely boring) entries in lang-8. I’m using it to practice writing and it’s murder.
Chatting with the pharmacist for about ten minutes everyday to practice speaking and it’s murder!

I don’t really know of a way that is is smooth as English but you can simply switch the clause order and say something like:
お金がありません。学生だからです。
You might be able to use the te form too (although I’m not sure about this one)
お金がなくて、学生だからです。

RTK 2 has readings. The first does not.

If you feel like Texfugu’s kanji section is working for you, by all means, continue to use it. The style of RTK and Texfugu are similar in the sense that they both use mnemonic devices to help you remember the kanji and build up larger kanji from smaller ones. The main way in which they differ is related to pacing.
RTK focuses on learning all the meanings before anything else. (In fact I think the author recommends learning them before studying anything else in Japanese, kanji or not). The idea is that once you know the meanings of the kanji, you can learn the readings in context. Textfugu’s method spreads the kanji learning out, intermixed with other aspects of the language at the same time and slowly integrates them into things you’ve already learned.
I used RTK and liked it, as have others on the forum. I think the reason you hear so much about RTK here and so little about Textfugu’s method is a result of the fact that many of us signed up for this site a long time ago, before there even was a kanji section, and due to rewrites and updates to the site (some of which have come quickly, others not so quickly) have always been a step ahead of what the site has covered (at least in depth) and have gone off to do RTK while waiting for the site to catch back up.
The fact is that nobody can give an honest review of the Textfugu method because nobody has done it, at least to completion.

Yeah the start/finish thing can be accomplished by taking the “pre-masu”/base-2/stem/ whatever you want to call it and adding おえる and はじめる. If fact you can add すづけく for continuing to do something.

With する verbs (like study) you can use the base2 (し) or just drop the する all together as your friend said.

I started reading a new book this morning.
今朝新しい本を読み始めました。
I continued reading until six.
１８時まで読み続けました。
I will finish reading it tomorrow.
明日読み終えます。

For things that start, continue and finish on their own (like concerts or meetings or seasons) use the intransitive verbs はじまる, おわる and つづく.

Yes, you can use particles more than once and it is in fact often necessary, especially with を　and が. Things can get pretty crazy sometimes with noun-modifying phrases and conditionals and the like…

It seems a lot of people are moving into season 3 now. Koichi’s going to have to start turning those “Coming Soon”s into “Came a Bit Ago”s.
As for me, I gave up on the Core series again. It was just to boring; I felt like going on a rampage after ten or so cards.
Still reading “スパイダーウィック家の謎” though and learning tons of vocabulary. Although it may not all be incredibly useful…I did hit a nice 4 kanji compound today though: 後部座席（こうぶざせき）- backseat
I wonder if they have the phrase 後部座席の運転者.

間違った！

何かに衣食住をあげたかったら、家がない人を見つけるべきです。

Another coffee house…more and more like Starbucks all the time.

I slept on some futons in the back of my car at the post office on Saturday. I woke up before business hours so I probably didn’t freak out too many Japanese people. Then I drove to the other side of the prefecture for my weekly Japanese class. I learned nothing. There really needs to be something between beginner and intermediate. I guess I shouldn’t complain though since it’s free.