Jim Vrckovski just posted a link to this article. I had read this article previously but had lost the link to it (not again, I'm putting it in my blog, which in turn will result in it being stored in Outlook, which will result in it being indexed by LookOut). In short the article is a must read - so do it now.
If you are taking up .NET, I think that you can expect to learn most of the syntax for your language within a week, and with a little bit of help (shameless plug) get across the major framework pieces on your first real project. I've been doing stuff with .NET for over four years now and I am still learning new stuff - not necessarily stuff that most of us would use everyday, but the kind of stuff that makes you glad you took the time to dig through documentation and crack open assemblies with ILDASM or Reflector.
One of my current hobbies is making the VS.NET designer bend to my will.