ScrollPanes & TextAreas - Repositioning in 1.5 with .scrollRectToVisible()

Question

So I've an uneditable text area with the words wrapping around sitting inside a scroll pane.
My user clicks a button and the program fetches some text from an XML document and displays it on the screen.
The trouble is that the window automatically scrolls to the bottom of the text field, while ideally I'd like my user to be able to read from top down without having to start by manually repositioning every page.
So after I set my text, I've been trying to pull off a .scrollRectToVisible(Rectangle) method, which as best as I can tell is the only way to reposition scroll bars in Java 1.5.
I've tried applying the method to the textArea object itself, which from what I can tell is that way it should be done, with rectangles of all shapes and sizes, most notably
h = textArea.getSize().height;
w = textArea.getSize().width;
(0,0,0,0)(0,0,1,1) (0,0,w,h) (w,h,0,0)(w,h,-1,-1)
and so forth with all the permutations of those variables you can imagine.
But, alas, no cigar. I can't get my text window to begin it's short life visible from the top.
Am getting something simple and basic wrong? The only thing I've found so far that might be relevent is that the API specifies a seperate .scrollRectToVisible(Rectangle) method for JtextFields, over and above that which exists for other components. Which:
"Scrolls the field left or right."
Since I'm wrapping my words I only need up and down scroll, but gotta admit I'm stuck for how to accomplish this.
Here's the relevent code in my document, in case it helps:
//declare
     JTextArea letterSurface;
     JScrollPane scrollPane;
public void init() {
//initialise
     letterSurface = new JTextArea("initial bullshit") ;
     scrollPane = new JScrollPane(letterSurface);
//The text area properties
     letterSurface.setEditable(false);
     letterSurface.setLineWrap(true);
     letterSurface.setWrapStyleWord(true);
     letterSurface.setBackground(Color.white);
     letterSurface.setForeground(Color.black);
     letterSurface.setForeground(Color.black);
     letterSurface.setFont(font);
//place
     getContentPane().add(scrollPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
//then in a differnt text fetching method
     letterSurface.setText(lettertext);
     letterSurface.repaint();
//and finally
     letterSurface.scrollRectToVisible(r);
//where r is a rectangle of all sorts of wonderful shapes and sizes as mentioned above
I've tried applying the .scrollRectToVisible() method to the scrollPane itself but that give me no joy either.
I'd be grateful for any insight anyone has.
Thankyou kindly.
M.

Answer 1

Dear Walker, thanks for the tip about .invokeLater(), it's a very useful little method and did exactly the trick. Would have taken me weeks to find it one my own.
I'll likely put this to lots of good use in the future too.
Thanky you very much.
da.futt - not setting the scrollBar value directly from the begining was just plain dumbness on my part. Thanks for pointing it out.
M.