Qwerty,
I can understand that your mum wants to see some evidence of it working. Afterall it's not much good if it possibly waste this much money on something that is going to end up sitting in a closet. 
If you want to prove to your mum it works I hope you use a shorter book as the course, Dana and others have advised, for your first book. I can't see how a computer programming book would convince your mum. I'm sure she expects to see some results that she can relate to your school work . It would prove something if you were able to say to your mum that you could comprehend the relevant information out of one of your text books in just 2 hours. Afterall with practice it gets even better than that.
Anyway keep having fun with it.
Alex
