St. Valentine's Long Weekend

TOPIC #1

My St' Valentines weekend was pretty fun. I didn't have my TOEFL class on Saturday, which was the best start ever. However, I had to go to the hospital with my aunt because she was really sick, I had to drive even. It was a good experience to drive here, of course different from what I'm use to in my country, but it was fun and at least I'm still alive. 

Then I went to a romantic date with my boyfriend, we went to a sushi restaurant, ate a lot and after that we went to downtown and spend a really great night together. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures; however I have to say that I was really happy and was the best St' Valentines ever. 

TOPIC #2

I didn't know too much about the Academic World List. At first, I inferred that it had to be something related with a world list specifically used for academic purposes. I was not sure if I have used it before, so I tried to investigate about that. This is what I found.

The Oxfords Learner's Dictionaries says that "The Academic Word List is a list of words that you are likely to meet if you study at an English-speaking university." Because I don't study at an English-speaking university, I have not used it before; however, I think it is an useful tool to improve vocabulary and turn the essays and writing assignments in to a more academic field. According to the University of Nottingham, "you can try learning some words from the list every day, but it is better to study the words in context, so that you understand how they are used."

I find this link of the University of Nottingham very useful because it gives suggestions and tools like AWL Highlighter and AWL Gapmaker to quickly identify words from and AWL in a text and create tests for yourself replacing words from the AWL with a gap.