About the only interesting thing is the beginning of our Hausarbeit and Seminarwoche. The Hausarbeit is the German term for a research project, and our Seminarwoche is supposedly to teach us about the requirements of an actual German Uni class. However, thus far it has proven to not be overly useful, and instead attempts to teach us basic writing tactics and skills that I have learned many times over beginning with high school. Hopefully this coming week will be better, and provide more constructive information about how the German Hausarbeit is different from a normal research paper - so far, all the teachers say that it is, but won't give any sort of concrete evidence or explanation to explain.
Ok. Rant over. The main thing that is different about the Hausarbeit is that its in German. Which is difficult - writing a 10 page research paper is a solid test of one's competence in a subject in English; what I'm doing here is having a lengthy examination of my proficiency in both German and History (the chosen subject of my paper is Bismarck's role in creating and winning the Franco-Prussian war of 1870/71, and how that war contributed to German unification). It would be hard enough if I only had to write it in German; unfortunately, many of the sources are in German as well, so research is also in German (one of the downsides of having a German library at your disposal rather than an English). Oh well. It'll be good for me, I suppose.
I should stop procrastinating now. And get back to researching. Hooray for German Unification (the current subject of my inquiry)!
Oh, and PS - I'll bet that by the time I get back to the States, I'll be in an incredibly bad habit of run-on sentences. Those don't exist in German, and I'll probably start using that as an excuse to write run-on sentences in English.
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