So, Metrodore,
I’m curious, how did you find Adler’s book in the first place?
Timotheus
Kyneto:
Nice to hear you’re following the Assimil course as a kind of virtual stowaway. You’ll be glad to hear it’s the Christmas break right now (start again Jan 10, 2008, with Ch. 22, then one chapter every third day).
Perhaps this is a good opportunity for me to listen to more Metrodorus/Adler. Though I must get myself an mp3 player to store it on perhaps. As it is, my standard inside jacket-pocket companion is Morton’s Legends of Gods and Heroes (best Latin reader ever, from 1912). By the way, can I convert cassette recordings to digital format?
As an autodidact, I think parallel translations are unbeatable: they let us intuit how the target language works and build up a vocab without agonies of total bafflement.
As for writing/speaking Latin, I’m still stuck in my shell of silent shame – ridiculously enough. I try to personalize texbook sentences by creating my own variations. But externalizing what goes in is harder. People like yourself ‘who have crossed over’ are a constant inspiration. How did you start out? By writing the odd paragraph on a special topic or picture? By producing sentences out of the blue in your bath tub?
Your “Circulus Latinus” idea is great. San Diego is a good place for Latin. Last time I was there I picked up some excellent old Latin textbooks in a second-hand bookshop… 
I liked the black-and-white edition of the Oxford course before the full-colour make-over agents got their hands on it. Horace was virtually ousted out of Book 1, whereas the original Book 1 finished with H. leaving Italy for Greece and the poignant picture caption: “nec patrem nec matrem nec sororem Quintus umquam postea visurus erat?. Taught me a lot about the future participle. A more general criticism is that the authors could have integrated more of H’s ‘easier’ poems into the story. Vides ut alta, Ne quaesieris, and Quis multa gracilis would have been better than Fons bandusiae and O saepe mecum.
I’ve noticed over the years that very few revisions lead to improvements. And I’m not just thinking of Latin textbooks. I wonder if there is a Latin saying something like ‘improvement is not always for the better’ or ‘second thoughts are dead thoughts’. Funnily enough, I see that one of Laura Gibbs’ proverbs today says the opposite: Sapit qui reputat (wise is the man who thinks twice)! 
I applaud your 7-month plan of study. Your mention of Grex Latine Loquentium reminds me that I must check it out more often. I like its links to other texts. Internet territory is a wow. Yesterday I found myself reading Newman’s Rebilius Cruso (it has an interesting introduction too) as well as Latin translations of well-known poems by Goethe and Heine. Also, two small Latin crime-story books arrived from Germany (part of a ‘Schüler-Lernkrimi’ series I’d ordered on the Net). Newly-written tales for kids about forgers and arsonists but good for recycling vocab and structures. (That’s the beauty of Europe: each country has its own subset of Latin enthusiasts churning out new materials).
Now I must do a bit of Attic Greek.
Vale.
As an adjunct to Latinum, I have started to compile an online visual vocabulary for Latin for everyday things, using as my basis William’s Vocabulary for Speaking Latin (1828), organised roughly thematically. This was done for my own amusement on my computer, but I decided the method was so successful for learning new words, that I would post it online. I do not claim copyright of any of the images, as they are all sourced from google.
Your might find this entertaining, even useful. The learning of the Latin vocable is not mediated by another language. This is therefore a resource of use to students of Latin in any country, as the site contains only images and Latin words and phrases.
You can find my first efforts here: The material is roughly posted according to categories.