AJATT and Japanese immersion in the US

About 1.5 years ago, I stopped attending Japanese classes.  The main reason was that the textbook for the next class was full of kanji and had very little, if any, furigana.  There was no way that I would be able to successfully participate in a class like that, although many of my classmates went ahead anyway.

I needed something different, and that was Heisig's book, which at first, I ignored and thought was stupid.  It wasn't until I re-read many of the articles at AllJapaneseAllTheTime.com (AJATT) and really understood the learning techniques, such as use Heisig's book and an SRS, have fun, listen to music, etc.

One of the techniques outlined at AJATT is immersion.   I tried to find a Japanese equivalent for any site that I used to visit that was in English.  It worked out great for a while, but I felt like I was not keeping current with US news.

I thought many times: "Is there a site where I can read US news in Japanese?" Sure, there are plenty of Japanese sites covering Japanese news, but it was difficult, at least to me, to find US news.  I had given up hope, but found US Frontline. It's an excellent site that has world/US news, and you can even download full back issues in PDF format for free!

Now there is no excuse not to immerse yourself.  You can stay current with US and world events, and still learn Japanese.