Hehe, not bad, actually. 8D I think I'm only a little farther than you 'cause I've been studying longer. But I'm also pretty horrible at kanji... Especially the ones with more than 15 strokes. orz
It's not that important, but I'll just sneak this bit of info in anyway: 私 *can* be used by guys in formal situations (because it's a gender-neutral pronoun when used formally), but if you're a guy and speaking casually to a friend/family member/whatever, then you could use ぼく instead.
And yup, I have a private tutor. :D We only meet every two weeks, though, so she gives me a looot of homework plus stuff to do in my Genki textbooks~
Oh, I don't think I've ever heard of that. O: What is it?