Grape juice, Sprite and the mountain
This past week I have been busy writing a paper on the Schmalkaldic War for my history course. It’s been a week full of researching, reading German documents and writing on my roommate’s computer. It’s amazing how much longer it takes and how much more concentration one needs to write an 8 to 10 page paper in a language that isn’t your “Mother tongue”. One takes as many breaks as possible to keep sane, but some days it is really difficult to keep the mindset and finish that paragraph you were writing five minutes ago. Going on jogs around the city (it is basically spring here and quite warm, so it is really fun going for jogs in the park), grabbing groceries, baking cookies for my roommates and cleaning the apartment become daily occurrences to keep ones head straight. I’ve learned the German system for writing papers, or am attempting to, and have learned that one really needs a system to writing papers. Thank goodness for having to write so many at Concordia that I already have said system under control! 
Yesterday my roommate, Teresa, and I went up the mountain to enjoy the sunshine and good weather and to grab some much-needed exercise after sitting nearly the entire day reading, researching and writing. It was wonderful to take a break from the day-to-day life of writing papers and all and sit up on the mountain overlooking Jena and drink some grape juice with Sprite. Yum!! The sun was just in the right spot that the few clouds that were in the sky were lit from behind. As cold as the wind was, we were glad to have a break and just sit and chat. The flowers up there were in bloom (the little purple violets and such) and made the small break even more enjoyable.
Another new thing that has been a bit of a breath of fresh air for us here in the apartment is that we got another new roommate this past week. Farsan and his family are from Persia, but his dad lives in Berlin where he went to high school. Last night we made dinner together and were able to get to know each other more and found out that our birthdays are two days apart! It’s always nice to get to know new people and be able to have a truly “international” apartment. But for now it’s back to writing and editing. And looking up grammar and words in dictionaries to make sure every word is in the right place and actually is the right word.