Trying to Learn Russian

[yukinoitazuchi.livejournal.com]

Hello. I am a Sophomore in college now, already thinking about grad school. One of the colleges in my state is, IU, Indiana University. To graduate from IU, you have to be trilingual (information here). I, not to brag, am fluent in English (native speaker) and pretty fluent in Japanese (eight years). Fluency is used in a general sense. To one person I may be fluent, to another I may be worse than mediocre.

I was thinking about Russian as a third language. The good thing is that my college offers some Russian. I will probably have to take some my senior year.

I have been trying to study the alphabet and feel frustrated that this is not coming easy. I did not have this much trouble with Japanese or at least I do not think I did.

Any pointers?

[EDIT: I am also thinking about Korean as another possibility or just go to Ohio State. With Ohio State, money is an option since I am an Indiana native.]

Thank you very much!

Crossposted to linguaphiles, learn_russian