My first class of the day is political science and it begins at 8AM. Early morning classes are always tough especially with the busses but I made it and it’s always nice to enter a class with no students or having to wait for people to walk out. I got to school early, chose a spot to sit, and just waited. When the professor walked in he immediately struck as being quite young, maybe in his 30s. He introduced himself and mentioned that this was the first year he is teaching at my university, as he previously taught at a school in the US.

This class has one heavy weighed assignment, the research paper, and a bunch of smaller ones. The paper will be composed in class, which is a first for me, due to the rise of AI usage. He wants to be able to physically see us right the paper, and not only that but we will also be writing it with pen and paper. Research will be done outside of class alongside notes and our outline that we bring to class. The final product will be typed up. There are no exams but there are two quizzes. So far, with the way he talked he seems pretty accommodating and is open to communication.

Because this class is quite long (not as long as my seminar) he will do a 3 minute break every 20 minutes. This is to allow us to mess around with our phones or computers as they are prohibited from being used in class unless given an accommodation (either formal or from him). Due to his prohibition of technology, he says it is distracting which I agree with, I may be unable to use my tablet. Although I do not type with it (except these posts) I do physically write my notes on it with the Bluetooth pen. He then told us to imagine the front door of where we live and if we can visualize if quite well, apparently he does not have this ability and told us this to stress that it may take awhile to remember our names and faces.

The course itself is about conflicts related to war and peace, some of our days in class will be dedicated to skill development. Attendance is mandatory and for every unexcused absence there will be a half percent taken off our final grade. One assignment we will be graded for (only 2% of the fin grade) is a completion plan where we have to list off all the assignments from every single class we have, including their due dates. We have to do this twice in the semester. The quiz development is a weird one where we have to create our own quizzes, critique each others’ anonymously, and then he will create his own quizzes with our questions. He said he is doing this because he does not like the typical lecture format of the professor telling us information and then giving us work to do, he claims this is alienating and wants us to be part of the process. I do not know how I feel about this because this honestly just seems like he’s telling us to do work. I do not have an issue with this, it’s just an observation but I could be wrong!

This class also has a presentation, which most of you know I hate doing these and struggle every time. This one is weird because instead of lecturing in front of the class we have to record our presentation and voice over. The presentation is also anonymous as our names are not to be put on it and only our voices should be present, no webcam unless we really want to for some reason. I do not know why but this feels worse than just standing up and talking like an idiot to the class. I have a weird animosity towards my voice and hate it even more when it is recorded, so having to hear myself speak sounds like a goddamn nightmare. The presentation has to be about a journal article we found that is related to the course. We also have to use Kaltura Capture to record our presentation. I have never used this program before so hopefully it goes well I guess. I actually do not know if the presentation is going to be played in class or just given to a student to grade.

Yes, us students will be grading each other. It seems nearly all of these assignments will be peer reviewed rather than by the professor. If anything he is grading the quality of our assessments, to see if we were thorough and fair I guess. We can ask him to reevaluate a peer grade if we believe it is wrong. While he will know which assignment belongs to which student as they will be uploaded to the school website thing, all assignments and reviews will be unnamed. Therefore they are non yours so no one will know whose assignment they are reviewing and who is reviewing their own. This whole class is giving me a LOT of mixed feelings.

He then gave us advice on how to go about the readings for the week. Since we have this class two times a week we have two readings to do. The first reading should be read before the 1st class of the week, while the 2nd one should be done AFTER the second class as it will always be more challenging and he wants us to have his guidance. He then showed us the readings for next week and told us that he is very critical of the one written by Andreas Bieler and Adam David Morton titled “Axis of evil or access to diesel? Spaces of new imperialism and the Iraq War” from Historical Materialism. Now I have no idea why he is so critical of this piece but the fact that it comes from a journal called “historical materialism” and is about imperialism regarding the Iraq war, makes me worried. But I tend to be very negative so I should probably calm the fuck down. Maybe he will surprise me, who knows.

So let’s get into the units as they may interest you. The first one is about regime change and the Iraq War; unit 2 is about systemic transformation and how it creates conflict; unit 3 discusses humanitarian intervention and focuses on Libya; unit 4 is about industrialized war, using WWI and WWII as the case studies; unit 5 is about narrative in international politics, using the Cold War and the Global South; in unit 6 we will learn about civil war with what happened in Colombia; ethnic conflict is during unit 7 where Northern Ireland will be the case study; unit 8 confused me as Ukraine will be the case study used to discuss territorial conflict, I thought it would fit the ethnic conflict too but based on the article titles listed I have a feeling this will lean towards a particular bias; unit 9 will go way back to the US Civil War as it will be used to learn about war and social transformation; our final unit, number 10, will talk about pacifism.

He ended the class by talking about the usage of generative AI and why it is strictly prohibited. While our current culture has not truly adapted to the usage of generative AI, he suspects that in 5-10 years there might be a culture shift towards insane levels of authentication just to verify that you can and did do what you claim. Leaning on AI will screw you when people start asking for verification. He then brought up an example of a digital artist who had to film themselves drawing on their tablet to assure the client that they did, in fact, draw the piece they paid for.

So that was political science, let me know what you think.

Let’s move on to my Post-Socialist History class. I was both giddy and nervous for this class, but nervousness is kind of my default state at this point. My professor introduced herself and talked about her life. She is originally from Russia, somewhere in southern Siberia (no exact location given) where the humidity is quite high. She was originally going to teach Marxist-Leninist philosophy when she lived in the former Soviet Union but she immigrated a year before the dissolution when her three year old daughter came back saying she wanted Lenin to visit her rather than Father Frost because Lenin is the kindest man in the world. I thought this was sweet but was disappointed that it made my Professor want to leave.

She then proceeded to talk about how historians and sociologists are always in conflict. This is due to the fact that sociologists mostly look at the present moment and its issues, looking for solutions, while historians look at the origins. Because what is happening now in post-socialist states is due to their socialist past. I really wonder how she will approach this.

She claims this course is difficult to teach as it is too recent and we are still processing everything that happened. We will also be looking at multiple wars like the Chechen war, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia. She went on about how the West doesn’t really talk about many conflicts from the East and it is only cared about now because Putin is weird and corrupt, but she specified that while thats true he is not solely responsible for the current war.

This course will also touch on the daily lives of citizen, the economy, and gender relations. One of the sources we have to read is about how under socialism people, women specifically, had better orgasms. Yes it is a chapter from Ghodsee’s book, the one titled “Gross Domestic Orgasms,” which is a hilarious title.

My professor then talked about how many people, even including herself, make the mistake in calling the USSR “Russia.” Because it was not just Russia, the Soviet Union was made up of 15 republics and many national autonomous regions. So it was not just Russia. To drive this point home she mentioned that the early USSR was very bi on promoting local cultures and languages rather than imposing Russian. The central Asian states specifically had their nomadic languages promoted by experts who were deliberately hired. This pivoted into the Map quiz, which is just a geography quiz so we know the regions of the USSR and understand that it had many parts.

Next we were shown a map of Eastern Europe after WWII to illustrate how freedom brought divisions. As in states emerged due to conflict after freedom was restored, like in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. She made a comment that kind of stuck with me: “as the Soviets were liberating the East, they were pushing their borders West.” This stuck with me because she used the word “liberating” which is seldom uttered when talking about the Red Army. The border push was mostly to kind of show spheres of influence, the west “gifted” Eastern Europe to the USSR, but she reworded herself in a way saying that the west could not get a foothold in the East due too the Soviets sacrificing so much to liberate it. Kaliningrad was pointed out as a problem because now that the USSR is gone Russia is now split, with one of its provinces completely separated.

Pointing to the socialist sphere of Europe, my professor stated that this happened because Stalin was paranoid of the Union being invaded by the West so he wanted a buffer zone of democratic states. She then said this was not necessarily democratic as popular leaders were arrested while Moscow-influenced politicians took power in the satellite states.

The point of this class is to learn what socialism is, why Eastern European countries are distrustful of the West and the EU, why there is nostalgia for thee socialist past, and how democracy works and why it is so weak in post-socialist states. She wants this course to help us understand how our world is changing today. With that she brought up China’s recent meeting and the idea of multipolarity. We will hopefully find the answer to why populist leaders are so popular. She says they speak beautifully but do nothing, why do they win?

There are quite a bit of assignments for this class: an annotated bibliography, in-class writing assignments (for the participation grade, to help shy students), the map quiz, a midterm, final, and research paper. All of them are quite heavily weighted, except the quiz, so there is really no room for error. As a debt to us she will post suggested paper topics to help figure out what we are going to write, although we can do whatever we want as long as we discuss it with her.

For students that are not well versed in Russian history she suggested a textbook by David Marples called Motherland: Russia in the Twentieth Century. Do any of you know who Marples is? If so let me know what you think.

Moving on, she pointed out that we will be watching the movie Brother (1997), and she called it a very dangerous and controversial film. On the syllabus it is described as a cult film. We have to watch it for in-class discussions. If you have seen it please feel free to share your thoughts on it.

The course will begin with understanding what socialism is and will end with the Ukraine war. Now, since she finished reading the syllabus and we had so much time left she decided to break us off into groups of four. In the group we must introduce ourselves, our major, and what we think socialism is. Of course my anxiety kicked in and I immediately panicked. She lead me to a group and it turns out that al four of us have had classes together at some point. The girl from my Women’s history class was here too and in my group. When I spoke I was shakey and a mess, i said my name and major, but when attempting to describe socialism I nearly cried I was so scared. I managed to mumble something about the proletariate, means of production, and the workers having power. I know it’s a terrible definition but I was not doing well at all. I could literally feel a weird bussing in my legs which I think were my nerves.

Not only that but every group had to say to the class what their own definition of socialism was and I will list them here:

Group 1: less extreme erosion of communism, collective ownership. My professor added on that Communism was the future of socialism, theoretically speaking.

Group 2: Sounds good on paper but always ends badly, preaches equality but results in many people being poor with a small wealthy elite.

Group 3: socialism is broad and includes welfare.

Group 4 (my group): before I say anything you need to know that I was not the ambassador for my group. The guy who spoke for us said that socialism had equality as the goal, it limits innovation and growth, and was doomed to fail. I DID NOT SAY ANY OF THAT AT ALL. I was so embarrassed that I promised to visit my professor after class and clear my name because what the fuck was that?

Group 5 (the worst): economic failure, tears countries apart, planned economy is bad. The business major of the group used the cow analogy: communism is when the state takes your cow and maybe gives you milk; socialism is when you give the cow to the state voluntarily and everyone gets milk; Capitalism is when you buy your cow, keep your cow, breed your cow, sell the milk, get more cows and create a cow enterprise; anarchism is when you keep your cow and shoot everyone. My professor laughed and said that analogy was made by someone who loves capitalism.

Group 5 continued on with their anti-socialist and anti-communist agenda. One of them claimed that the soviet leaders lived in luxury but my professor pushed back that Brezhnev was a very modest man and when the union fell his family suffered terribly. The student back tracked and said that Stalin was the wealthy one, Professor said that Stalin was even more modest as he only hungered for power not riches. Not a great thing to say but not terrible. The business major girl claimed that people in the USSR were indoctrinated from birth, I immediately thought that we too are indoctrinated and they may not know what that word means. This group also claimed that the Soviets who returned from Germany were killed because they saw what the other side was like.

My professor then talked about how Soviet brainwashing did not work as Soviet citizens had many jokes poking fun at their government and work life (“they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work”). One of the students in my group asked if socialism was equivalent to utilitarianism, my professor said it wasn’t but they had similar elements. Then class ended, before I left I made sure to tell the girl I share a class with that I was sorry f how I acted and it had nothing to do with her and its just that I am very bad at socializing and what not. She was completely understanding and so unbothered by how I was so that was nice.

Anyway, it looks like I am the only Marxist/Marxist-Leninist person in this class and am surrounded by liberals. As you might have guessed I was shivering incredibly badly, my anxiety was not taking this well. Call me Stalin in how paranoid I was and still am. Unfortunately, I am the type to hear stupid comments and become incredibly bothered by them, so I suspect that these students are really going to stress me out all semester. I do not know why I am like this, it’s so bad that I am literally on the verge of tears when having to speak or when people say such idiot vitriol. I also hated being lumped in with anti-socialist sentiment. Honestly, it was only the on guy, our speaker, who said anything negative while the other who were neutral and didn’t say much. He literally said all he knew about Socialism was Stalin and that it sounds good on paper. I am not joking. My attempt at a definition was to be matter of fact but nothing that I said actually made it into his description.

Although I could have gone home right after class, I decided to wait a few hours to meet with my professor in her office when she was available. I am the type that just cannot let things go when they bother me, I need to say something. While I was waiting, and the time was ticking closer I felt my pulse and realized how fast my heart was beating. I wonder if it had been like this since my history class. Maybe that’s why I was still so jittery hours after class ended.

During office hours I was still shaking and incredibly nervous. I started by saying my other history professors had talked her up, so to speak, and encouraged me to try and take a class with her as they thought I would do well with her. She seemed flattered but also embarrassed in that she hoped she didn’t disappoint. I assured her she didn’t and my main problem was with the class, really. I then told her that the definition that my group shared did not implement anything that I had said and every group was essentially the exact opposite of what I said. She then asked me to give her my definition, so I did using the terms “proletariat” and “bourgeoisie” and the move towards worker ownership. I was disjointed and I was still jittery but she said that based off what I said she believes I am operating on a higher level than the other students in class while they are working off the pop-culture idea of what socialism is.

She then went on about how hopefully the other students, and myself of course, will come out of this class understanding socialism more and the region. She then asked me if it would be alright to call on me in class for answers or discussion, I said yes because the only way to get me to speak in class is through forcing me and I want to get better since I am going for my masters and PhD. That led to a discussion on what I am going for, History, and what I was interested in specializing, I said Marxist-Leninist history. She then asked where I planned on going to study and I said I wanted access to the Soviet archives so probably in one of the republics.

Then we talked about language learning and she hopes the war is over by the time I head over there. She also encouraged me to not settle on that degree as the job market is not really looking for historians. She said library stuff would be more lucrative but I really don’t want to do that, but I told her that i am a paranoid person and was already aware of the job issue. I am still going for history as a masters and PhD because it is the only thing I can do and I enjoy it.

We did talk about the Ukraine war and the Nazis who were brought into Canada. She did not give me her position on the war, I did not ask nor expect it, but she talked about how we will go as far back as 2008 when learning about this conflict. Apparently Putin made a speech back then telling the west that Russia would be recognized by them and essentially implied that things were going to end up this way. Does anyone know what speech this is? She does not have all her sources compiled for the war but she will shared clips and speeches once she does. Before I left I asked, because we are learning about gender relations in these post-Soviet states, would we also be touching on queer people. She said yes, although it is not known how deeply it will be covered.