There's not a whole lot to go off of but hopefully you're using a ruby manager (RVM or rbenv with ruby-build) to install rubies and not via apt-get. Using Rails 3.2 with Ruby 1.8.7 is simply not a good idea.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.