Hey, so, I don't have anything specific on my mind to muse about today. I'll just fill you in on what I've been doing in that friggen sweet history class.

Ok, so because of time contraint we have to basically learn WW1 on our own and then write a test on it. I wouldn't mind this except that in grade 10 when we first looked at WW1 we really only focused on Canada and never went into any detail about the general aspects of the war (causes, famous battles, strategies used etc.). We did learn some of the details but not as much as I would have liked. Anyway, now we are to study for a test without going over in detail the aspects of ww1. I will give the teacher credit in that she gave us a very good brief timeline of the war and its aspects that will be covered on the test. Her reasoning for zipping through WW1 is because most students in the class had very little teaching on WW2 in grade 10 history. Also, we are skipping the height of the Industrial Revolution and the Victorian times, but that's ok, it's all because of time constraint and the teacher really wants us to learn about WW2. Overall, I'm disappointed but understand and am looking forward to studying WW2.

For our year end culminating project in that class we have to research and write an essay about a historical figure as to whether they had input on history because of their actions or whether they were just in a position that made them just be pulled along the tide of historical events. You could say that you either are writing if the person was the puppet master of their area of history or a puppet of their area of history. Anyway ,it is kind of a dumb thesis we were given but regardless I decided to write about Karl Marx...I was not disappointed. I loved researching his life, his ideas and 19th Century Europe. I started knowing very little about Marx (ex. I thought he was Russian) and now, though I don't consider myself an expert by any means, know a great amount about him and would like to learn more.

More than researching his life though I would like to research his ideas of social history and on economics. Though it would really hard for me to understand his economic theories, such as on capital, historical materialism, and production) I still would love to research and understand them, if only at a basic level. I would just love to understand the economic theories by which some of the greatest national powers of modern times based their policies on.

Also, it was really amazing to learn his theories on social history. These being essentially that the history of society is one of class struggles and that the same patterns of revolution and class structure and restructuring have occurred over and over again in history. Marx's solution to ending this pattern of class structure was to create a classless society via Communism.

Well, I have to go, class is starting. I want to write more but time constrains me! Frig...I love history!

- a history student