Writing about success can be quite tricky. If you write about how love is amazingly important and finding Mr. Right is your goal #1, you'll sound silly. If you write about how earning "big money" is important, you'll sound like a...er...jerk. That's why I came with a genius solution. I will simply write about my latest success.

It was Monday afternoon in June 2010 when the acceptance letter arrived. The journey has started in September 2010 and ended in really, extremely, unpleasantely warm Tuesday in May 2015. Yes, after five years of battling with myself, I graduated. That's been probably my biggest success in years. And it meant so much to me. I guess it was a proof that all these nights without sleep (except those when we were partying) weren't for nothing.

And I guess that in the close future I will take as a success when I survive the Canadian winter. Big success also will be if I would bake everyones favorite Christmas bread just as good as the last year's.

The best way (and the least painful) how to expand your vocabulary is to talk with natives! Or go to places and just listen. You can learn slang or collocations and you don't even notice.

Dictionaries are useful too (but more painful). Learner's Dictionary, online part of the Encyclopædia Britannica, offers to the subscribers a daily portion of knowing consists of one English word. Here's the link: Word of the Day. There's also the possibility of testing your vocabulary skills, which can be both challenging and depressing.

Progressive people from Cambridge University Press came with apps to smart phones. Some of them are not for fee, but some of them are free. I would recommend for example Phrasalstein (I know, people from Cambridge are smart AND funny!). This app could help with phrasal verbs. It's also suitable for forthcoming Halloween.

My vocabulary has been expanding thanks to books. The most recent book I've been reading helps expand my empty Gaelic vocabulary. Thanks Diana Gabaldon, thanks a lot! Or how would the Highlanders say: Tapadh leat!