Learning Spanish for employment and travel reasons?

[Animegamer]

Well yeah... I thought Spanish was just a boring class in highschool which I quickly dropped out of because I consitered it useless. And, up until this point learning it for me would have been a complete waste of time. However the field im going into, A+ Computer Repair/IT oriented field alot of the jobs in the areas ive been looking (down south where its warmer) say that they "require or prefer employees be bilingual in spanish and english."  The problem is, besides a few memorized phrases I don't speak Spanish...

The past year and a half or more I have been studying, and learning Japanese mainly just for personal and hobby reasons, wanna do fansubs maybe take a vacation there but I never gave any consiteration to the fact I might need to know spanish for employment reasons... Im aware that Spanish is significantly easier than Japanese, but I just don't think I can learn 2 languages at once, on top of my IT classes so for the next year or so im going to have to put my Japanese studies on hold because work comes before fun.

So far I have...

+ a handheld spanish-english dictionary

...and this really old grammar/writing book i found on ebay because im pretty much broke

Im open to suggestions... I suppose for anyone who knows anything about spanish *bangs head on wall in frustration*... as if i dont have enough book work as it is

[Scotsman]

Fortunately for me the Seattle area is chock full of jobs if you know Japanese.  Yay for being a port city closest to Japan.

[rtil]

I took 2 and a half years of spanish, and I've been to spain. i don't have much to offer but i'll try to help when i can.