Kanji Crazy!!

A ghost story, Nagashima Spa Land

This photo is from outside the haunted house at Nagashima Spa Land. Apparently it tells the story of a biwa (guitar-like instrument) player, who is very good. A ghost gets jealous of his skill, and keeps trying to haunt him. To protect himself, the biwa player writes kanji characters (Japanese characters that originally came from China) all over himself as a form of incantation, to prevent the ghost from being able to get to him. However, the biwa player forgets to cover his ears, and the ghost is able to find him. Then the ghost cut his ears off, because they weren't protected. Can't remember what happens next, but I assume the ghost killed the biwa player, judging by the big rock in the ghost's hand in the background. Apologies if I got the story a little wrong! Anyway, the display was really neat, and the ghost kept popping up from behind the biwa player every minute or so!
So, speaking of kanji, I'm trying to learn kanji at the moment. I'm really not sure why, as I can barely say simple sentences, and I feel like maybe I should learn more basic Japanese before I start jumping into the characters. I'm really finding it hard to make heads or tails of a lot of things I need to buy at the grocery store and drug store and such, so I figured that if maybe I learned kanji, then even if I still can't speak very well, at least going shopping and reading signs and such won't be such a major obstacle. So, I've started work on a book called "Remembering the Kanji 1" by James Heisig. So far so good, I've remembered about 180 kanji just in the past 4 days or so. I have no idea what they are pronounced like though, as this book just tells you a general meaning for each character, and how to write it correctly (you have to remember in which order the strokes go). So, in theory you learn all 2000 or so basic kanji in this way, and then go back (with the 2nd book) to learn how to pronounce each character (and most have at least 3 different pronunciations, depending on where the character is in relation to other ones).The author's theory is that it is easier to remember all the kanji, then attach the extra info about pronunciation to each character later, rather than trying to remember all the info about each kanji all at once. So, obviously a lot of work! We'll see if it works! A friend is learning the kanji the traditional way (in the order they teach it at school in Japan, and learning the writing and reading at the same time). I told her I would race her!
It seems like a lot of people want to study for the Japanese proficiency tests, which means that usually you end up studying the kanji that will be covered on your test. However, these are in no logical order, so I think it is maybe a more difficult way than how I am learning. If I am going to put time into studying the kanji, I might as well study all 2000 common ones in an order that makes it easier to remember, rather than dividing them up into random chunks as dictated by the exams. I want to be proficient in Japanese, I'm not sure I care about the exams. As an english teacher, I see a lot of students do really well on their exams, but still have no confidence to actually use the language. I don't want to be like that - I want to communicate!
So, for those of you who are also learning Japanese, and especially the kanji, ganbatte ne!!!!