Slowly getting there

There’s now 10 days left till I fly to London, and 12 days for TOPIK. While I am still super nervous, I can actually feel my nervousness fade more away for each day that passes, and my excitement is slowly taking over its place. It’s an amazing feeling! I have gathered all the most important things like my passport, money, TOPIK documents, flight documents, hotel reservation documents, books for my sister etc. in my handbag, since I won’t be needing them until I leave anyway. As I was packing these items yesterday I realized that I actually feel pretty ready. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m still convinced that I won’t get more than 2급, but again that was my goal to begin with. While I would love to get 3급, I honestly don’t feel upset by the thought of failing it anymore. As you guys probably know very well by now, I love trying to figure out where my sudden mind changes come from, and this is what I came up with. On Thursday I took another 토픽 2 읽기 연습 시험, and on Friday I looked at my result. I beat my previous best score with 8 points (4 answers), and I felt really happy. On Saturday I continued with the 듣기 part of the test, and I didn’t get any unusual result. 16 points higher than my worst result, but 6 points lower than my best. However, I felt like my understanding had gotten a lot better. I still didn’t understand it well enough to answer the questions properly, but I felt that I somewhat understood the basics of what was going on, which is a first for me. There’s usually 6-8 assignments where I have no idea what is going on, and just have to guess without putting any thought into it. This made me feel so much happier than the points probably would have, because it kept me from stressing out and thinking my usual ’omg I have no idea what’s going on, what does this even mean, I’m going to fail this so hard’ thoughts, and that meant that the time passed by a lot faster, and I was able to enjoy the challenge. It was a truly enjoyable experience.

So, was it the points that made me feel ready? My new and improved understanding of the 듣기 part? No, not at all. My original plan was to keep up with the practice tests, right until the actual exam, but I changed my mind when I was printing out the test from this weekend. I don’t want to ware myself out and more importantly, I don’t want to start getting bored with TOPIK tests. If that happens, then where does that leave me in 12 days? There’s just no way that it would benefit me. Of course I will still be studying until then – I mean come on, it is me after all! But no more TOPIK focused studying. No more 쓰기 practice, no more speed reading practice and no more practice tests. I’m going to study in whatever way I feel like. I’m going to continue reading 버드나무에 부는 바람 and I just started on the 1^st look magazine that I bought last month, and I’ll go back to enjoying my grammar books as well.
After making that decision I felt very pleased with myself. I have worked hard until now, and I have improved a lot from my first TOPIK 2 test in January and until now. Now, I have put away all my worries and I’m going to let my excitement take over any nervousness that might be left it me.

In 10 days I’ll see my sister for the first time in 5 months and we’re going to have 3 awesome days in London together. We’re going to go shopping and she’ll eat Korean food for the first time! If only I could make these 10 days go by a little faster!