LOL at everyone in this thread except Chips Ahoy and some of the later posts. Java is a great first language. That's why it's used for lots of intro courses. That's why you should learn it by following your own introductory course and following its curriculum, do the homeworks, etc. I'm sure there are better, but here's one:
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs.../handouts.html
Also, like Chips said, just keep writing programs to do stupid stuff. It's like exercise, your mind will resist doing it at first but you need to. You don't need to immerse yourself, it's not that intense. You do need to keep writing programs.