My first word

There are 4 different "alphabets" that the Japanese use in everyday language, which are oh-so-fun to learn. Hiragana (40-ish letters reserved for native Japanese words), Katakana (40-ish letters for foreign-originated words), Romaji (romanized version of Japanese) and kanji (Chinese characters of which there are thousands that have different sounds/meanings depending on the context and must simply be memorized). Right now I know katakana, but it wasn't always so. As of two weeks ago, I didn't know it. Katakana is very useful for English-speakers in Japan because it helps to know what is in a certain dish or cleaning agent etc by trying to figure out what it sounds like in English. Most of the time this works, sometimes not. For example, katakana will say that salami is "sa-ra-mi" and cabbage is "ka-ba-tsu" so it is all kinda guesswork to figure things out. I had been looking for handsoap for a couple of days and hadn't quite mastered katakana. So I was trying to read the bottle that said in katakana "_X_ - n-do-so-pu" I was trying to figure out what the first letter was in --ndosopu, ha-n-do-so-pu Yes! Hando-sopu. Hand soap. Yes I got it score! My first word. I am so excited, this is what it must have been like in kindergarden when I first learned how to read. I am on top of the world. I can do anything at this moment. It's a bird, It's a plane, nope it's me Cassandra and I'm a katakana master. I even bought a celebratory dessert to commemorate my first word, smiling like an idiot. I go to the cash register to pay and I don't understand anything he's saying, except that I know he's talking about me to the other cashier but I don't care because I can read, which means soon I'll be able to understand and then next comes talking. You just talk away buddy and don't be surprised when I talk back. Ho-re-i (Hooray)! banzai, banzaibanzai. (A week later I learned my first kanji for anti-bacterial or ko-kin. My office workers probably think I'm a freak.