Week 4 - oh wait...nothing happened

Seriously, nothing happened last week.  I wrote, I went to the archive, I didn't even do anything on the weekend but read and go to the archive.  It was a sad, sad week.

However, I have decided to undertake a new experiment while I'm over here in Germany.  My love for German breads, meats and cheeses is no secret, but lately I've realized that German yogurt is just as awesome.  You might be asking, "What do you mean?  Isn't yogurt the same everywhere?"  And that is where you would be wrong.

So....starting today I will be posting a yogurt a day (or at least I'll try to....we'll see how many different yogurt flavors I can find).  I've already had some amazing yogurt, but didn't get a chance to take any photos or write about them, so I'll have to buy them again, and test them out again.....what a hardship, right?  tee hee

Anyway, be on the lookout for reviews of various flavors and brands of German yogurt.  I'm so excited!!

Week 3 - Archives, Bad Dürbach, Legoland

So this week I was once again in the archives.  I wasn't quite as productive as I wanted to be, but I kept working, and reading and taking notes, so it's not a complete loss.  On Tuesday I met with the professor I am working with here to discuss the works I am covering in my chapters.  She had some great ideas and I think that our conversation will help me streamline what I'm doing in my dissertation.

Friday we had the opening of a new exhibit at the Literature Museum: a collection of letters from Franz Kafka to his sister Ottilie.  There was a very nice presentation at the archive, and then everyone went over to the museum to see the exhibit.  One of the advantages of being here in Marbach, is that there are a lot of events and lectures going on.  They may not have to do with my precise topic, but they are interesting none the less.

Saturday was my friend Melissa's birthday, so I rode out to meet her and some of her friends in Bad Dürbach.  The city is on the German Wine-road - in the Pfalz area of Germany.  It was a beautiful day.  We first saw the enormous wine cask that they have turned into a restaurant.  Had a lovely meal at the restaurant.  Tasted some lovely wines, and then toured around the countryside a bit more.  We walked up to some castle ruins and took some amazing picture of the countryside.  In all it was a great day.

Sunday we went to Legoland.  I have always kinda looked down on legoland thinking that it was kinda lame, but I have been converted.  It was awesome.  In part it was great because it was the opening of the Star Wars exhibit and they had stormtroopers wandering around.  We had a nice time going on rides, enjoying the day, and generally relaxing.  I got some amazing photos of both the park and the stormtroopers - to be posted soon.

Marbach & Bodensee - Week 2

Last week I turned in the first chapter of my dissertation to my advisor and to the professor I'm working with in Germany.  I've received my advisor's comments and overall they are pretty good.  I'm still waiting to hear from the professor here in Germany, but then Germans take their time with such things.

This past weekend I went to Lake Constance, the Rheinfalls, and the Black Forest with a friend of mine from home.  She's working in Germany for the next year or so and wanted someone to go on an adventure with her, so we packed up the car, with her dog, and headed down south.  The weather wasn't awesome the first day, but thereafter it was actually a lovely, albeit full, weekend.  Photos here (there are more but Picasa is being difficult).

Marbach - Week 1

The image on everything in Marbach.

So I arrived in Marbach on Monday - after a relatively long and treacherous trip here, which I won't bore you with because honestly I can't go through it again.  Just take my word for it, don't fly into Toronto if you don't have to, and whatever you do be wary of flying on AirCanada if you aren't at one of their primary airports.

Of course because of the relatively long and treacherous trip, I ended up without my larger bag and having to take the train from Zurich yet again, though this time I'm pretty much an expert so...whatever.

Photo of my room

Marbach is a relatively small town about a 15 miles north of Stuttgart.  It is home to the German Literature Archive, the National Schiller Museum, the Museum of Modern Literature, and it's claim to fame is being the birthplace of Schiller - one of Germany's most prized authors from the 18th/19th centuries. On Monday I picked up the key to my room, found my room, and finally got a chance to check my email on the shared computers down in the first floor area.  Because of the flight delays I got in too late to re-register at the archive, and therefore couldn't get my access code for the internet.  No problem.  I had been to Marbach last year, so I was familiar with the area a bit, so after dropping of my bags in my room, I went to the bakery and grocery store quickly before they closed.

Tuesday I headed down to Tuebingen to visit with friends and to sit in on a course that one of my committee members is teaching.  I'll be headed down there every Tuesday to sit in on that class, which will give me a nice break from writing, at least once a week.  The class was good and I set up an appointment with the professor for next Tuesday.  I should be giving her a draft of my first chapter then, and I wanted to get a chance to talk to her about a conference paper that I'm working on, as well as the exchange student that she will be sending to our department next semester.

Wednesday spent almost the whole day at the archive.  I had ordered some books on Tuesday morning, when I went to register and picked up my internet access code, so they were waiting for me when I arrived.  In addition to the many collections they have (two of which I am interested in for my project) they have a great deal of secondary literature which is useful.  Some of it I have access to in NC, but other stuff I don't.  It's great to be at a place that is so well stocked with good research materials, and those materials that I can't get here, I can usually access online.

Right now I'm just writing.  My goal is to write at least 10 pages a week.  So far for this week I've written 6 pages, but then I wasn't really able to write on Monday or Tuesday and I haven't calculated my total for today.  If I can write a minimum of 10 pages a week, I will have written about 110 pages this summer.  It's not enough in the grand scheme of things, but it's a good dent.  If I can write more than that, it's great, but if not, I still feel like 110 pages is a fantastic foundation for finishing up next year.

In a couple of weeks I'm going to try to see about getting access to the two collections I'm interested in.  They are both full of what is known as Trivialliteratur or Unterhaltungsliteratur - basically popular fiction, but it's popular fiction from the 19th century, which is pretty hard to come by - particularly if it wasn't deemed important enough to keep around.  The one collection was a private library and the other is the contents of a lending library.  Both should be interesting and I'm hoping to find some works to round out my dissertation.  The goal - right now at least - is to write about one canonical work and one work of Trivialliteratur per chapter to show that the themes I'm looking at were present in both high and popular literature at the time.  We'll see if that happens, but it's a goal - plus, honestly most Trivialliteratur has just never been looked at, so I'm fairly certain it will be "original" research.  :)

As for Marbach, I have ventured around a bit thus far, in order to find the grocery store, bank, drug store, bakery, etc.  There's honestly not much here, but I actually feel like that's not a bad thing considering I have a dissertation to write.  But I'm going to make an effort to get hont a bit.  I've met a couple of other researchers  in the archive and I have a friend who works at the hospital in Landstuhl who I'm going to meet up with the next two weekends, so that will give me an opportunity to get a out and about.

The photos are pictures of my room and the view from my window.  I forgot to take my camera on my walk today, but since I'll be walking the stretch from the archive to the train station on a regular basis, I'm sure there will be opportunities in the future.  I'll update the album as I take photos.  More next week!

Summer 2011

As long as I've got the blog here, I figure I'll use it to update on my research trip this summer.  More posts coming soon.  But for now it suffices to say that I'm glad my luggage finally made it to Germany, and specifically that it made it to me today.

Hurray for having all of my clothes, shoes, etc.