I had a wonderful holiday from studies, it was really needed. Now I feel more energetic and excited about my courses and I’m ready for the fourth period to fully kick in. In this period I plan to read a couple of academic books in English and I will have an exam on each of the books. I have started my reading progress for the reading bit with the book I chose and it turned out to be a very good choice. I have read it before, years ago, but it was very difficult for me then and it still is now. I’ve collected all the new and difficult words from the book as I read, and there are plenty. In only fifteen pages I got all of these:

Ubiquity, lacerating, pieties, ballistic, manure, oxen, plodding, indefatigable, exuberance, cadenza, amiability, plaintive, roistering, haphazard, tenements, ambiguous, sonorous.

For the most part I understand the words within context, or at least I understand the full phrase, but the word is something I wouldn’t know how to use myself as I am not familiar with it and it’s exact meaning. I think it is good to collect them and relearn them as I go through my excel sheet full of difficult vocabulary.

This week I also took an IELTS English test, which honestly seemed to be quite easy. I will have the results on 21st of March (that’s when I also have my second counselling) but I really do feel it went quite well. I had some struggles with focusing in the reading section because by that time I had a full on migraine – which really didn’t help. The test included listening skills (30 minutes), reading skills (60 minutes), writing skills (60 minutes) and a speaking skills test, which was about 10 minutes or so. It felt difficult as well,  but I think that was mostly because of the subject that was given to me – complaints and complaining. It was difficult to talk about it, but it wasn’t because of the language but because the subject itself isn’t very easy for me. I hope the examiner doesn’t take away any marks from that.

I practiced for the IELTS test by doing some grammar tasks online and by just reading, listening and really focusing on the language I use and hear all around me. It is quite amusing to notice how much there is to learn in regular, everyday things, when I actually focus on it. Normally it is easy to just skip the words which I’m not that familiar with as I usually understand them and the context of the sentence. I haven’t been aware of skipping so many of them and I believe just taking this as a habit will surely improve my English and add to my actual, usable vocabulary.