I seem to do my coding / research in 'spurts'...like for a week at a time. I'll fix an issue with a personal program of mine / upgrade it / add new features etc. Do a whole lot of reading on the vbforums, research on google to learn a new method / function, start a thread to post a few questions on v.b.f. It seems like a year ago...if I would take a break for 2-months...I would totally forget everything & have to start over learning to program. Recently though, after a 2 month break... I seemingly pick-up where I left off from the last time...not 100% yet but it's getting easier to remember.

So I guess these questions are for those of you that consider yourselves "average / good" programmers.
Did you learn to program in Visual Basic on a full-time basis? If so, what amount of time passed before you felt like you had a firm grasp of the language & could knock out real-world tasks relatively easily?
Who was able to learn (a few days here & there) every couple of weeks? If so, what amount of time passed before you felt like you had a firm grasp of the language & could knock out real-world tasks relatively easily?
Who learned Visual Basic without having learned any other languages first? I'm asking this because it's what I'm doing!

How many of you were able to gain a firm grasp of coding without taking college courses?
How many of you are actually reading this post & not just killing time at work / appearing as if you're doing work-related research just in case your boss walks by?
How many of you aren't going to reply to this post because I'm a female & you think girls are totes yucky / and or unlikely to succeed in programming?
How many of you were able to gain a firm grasp of coding without first going through the entire "hello world" process / and without a firm grasp (at the start) of the core basic vocabulary?

Finally, how many of you would suggest finding a 'programming buddy' / 'mentor' / or paying for a 'tutor' as part of speeding up the learning process?