I strongly recommend trying to come up with your own projects. Just pick small things that reflect something you actually want to do: maybe make a simple board game, or a few scripts to help you keep all your files organized, etc. Generally speaking I think it's easier to teach yourself a language if you have a project you care about finishing. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy python makes it to travel from "It would be cool if I could..." to finished product. In my own case, I'm a college student, and I wanted a program that could help me schedule my next semester's classes without conflicts and with the maximum sleep possible. That first "project" gave me a lot of good python experience, and I know use python all the time for "real life" applications.
THN -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
