I agree with your points at your English level

You very likely met your daily communication need, even you might pronounce some words inperfectly. I would see you would continue to improve yourself, and NCE indeed has lots of well written essays.

The immigrated chinese, I see in US, who have problem in daily communications, donot need fancy idioms and words of intelligence; and they just need to pronounce the words in ther projects, and their coworkers' name correctly, and plain words to express yes or no on the proposals as the first step.

I liked your usage of the intensive and extensive reading. We have limited time, we should do an intensive reading related to our work/life and one hobby! One goal for everyone in US is to succeed at the next job interview if it becomes necessary.

I read newspaper everyday, I feel this is a good way for me to find something I can actively discuss with other people. I have bought a few classical novels I plan to read, but I read only one so far for the reason to understand American civil war, and others have gathered lots of dusts.