Perhaps you should investigate Scheme as well as Lisp. In particular
DrScheme[1] provides a very gentle learning curve, while at same time
offering enough libraries to accomplish real work (there are commercial
apps written in it). As a bonus, the DrScheme web server I believe was
one of the first, if not the first, to support continuations. There are
also Java based Schemes which give you access to the Java API [2].
Sounds like you have an interesting few months ahead, best of luck,
-pp
[1] http://www.plt-scheme.org/
[2] http://sisc.sourceforge.net/