Really great post. I studied Arabic for 15 months at the British Military language school and after working as a "Terp" I went on to run the policy for language support to the British Military. I encourage you to continue with your studies as the more time you spend learning the language the more rewarding it becomes. Once you start to move away from MSA and learn dialects it becomes much easier to speak, but even harder to listen. Good luck and great post.