Groveling and begging

Hi all!

I have no Flash experience, but I have taken on an assignment where I need to learn it, or enough to do the job, fast. I am very interested in learning though, so my questions are 2-fold:

  1. With regards to educating myself, I prefer a rigid structure to learning (classes, step-by-step linear plans, etc). How do you recommend I go about mastering learning this? Do you have any specific resources you think would be helpful? Is there a certain series of steps I should be taking? I love that the web has so much brilliant information, but it is overwhelming to my sensibilities.

  2. The task. I have taken an swf file that I would like to emulate certain aspects of, and decompiled it to get the resource files and ActionScripts and flas. I need to be able to edit it up to my liking, keeping the bones of it but changing most of it, and sew it back together. As you can see I don’t even know what I don’t know.
    I have Adobe CS5, though I am unsure which of the Flash programs are good for what.
    Sorry if I am not clear here or providing the right information. Please ask away if you might be able to help or even point me in the right direction.

Thanks!!!
Kimberly