February Update

Travel Journal Update: There is some more stuff up, if you go to the travel journal link.

Subscription Link: So, there is an issue with Google, but the link is here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AwakeningInThePast
 I could also manually create an email list for my updates, if people want.

Story Update: This is happening very slowly as I am still struggling to do anything.

Current Thoughts:

 -- Impeachment -- I have been against this. Basically, I think Trump is problematic and impeachable, but I have issues with the mentality behind the current process.
    Summary:
    a) Let's start with an easy one -- Pence becomes president when Trump is gone. Impeaching the president also doesn't fix the issues with the Republicans.
    b) US does this to other countries -- Trump is the type of person whom the American establishment likes to put in charge of foreign countries which it destroys, as this type of person is easy to manipulate. This may explain why such people who do this believe that he was put in by a foreign power. However, the same mentality which justifies this abroad would encourage people domestically to value this.
    c) Next is something much more difficult to understand -- Trump is politics as usual, just more open about the corruption.
    Some of the more obvious points which come to mind include: The Republicans tried to sabotage Obama just as the Democrats attempt to sabotage Trump. Many horrible things Trump does are also very standard, like hurting migrants (Obama was called the "Deporter in Chief") or attacking the Middle East (and Obama escalated the drone strikes in the Middle East).
    I can also point out that US presidents will put pressure on foreign countries far worse that that which Trump was accused of doing to Ukraine. And I am not convinced American imperialism is a better justification than Trump's selfishness.
    Glenn Greenwald has talked about how Hillary Clinton got information from abroad in order to try to take down Trump, and has many times pointed out this double standard. For example: ( https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/13/glenn_greenwald_donald_trump_jrs_emails ) "In which case, why is it OK for the Democrats to do it with Ukrainian officials or for their investigator to go to Moscow and get dirt on Trump?"
    d) Follows from (b) -- The entire impeachment process has been focused on an attempt to blame the Russians and push cold war mentality. Despite numerous potential offences, this process first focuses on the conspiracy-theory like "Russia-gate", only to switch to the American politics as usual "Ukraine-gate" when the conspiracy theory was proven false. The sin of Trump in this case is misbehaving in a way contrary to the American anti-Russian narrative rather than to advance it.
    e) Trump has been made into symbol of all the American sins. People think that if we get rid of him, we get rid of issues, but he is only more open about the corruption, not more corrupt. The people who love him don't want to admit that these things (racism, etc.) are issues, while the people who hate him don't want to admit that they have these issues.
    f) US politics has been phrased as a competition rather than focusing on fixing the issues. As such, impeachment will always be about Democrats vs Republicans rather than corruption, even if it were really about corruption (which it is not, no matter what the Democrats tell themselves).

    Here as an alternative analysis of the situation by philosopher Slavoj Zizek: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/480606-us-ideological-civil-war/

    I know appreciating these types of points is difficult for many people, especially as many of them require being honest about the reality of the US (as an imperialist state rather than being what it claims to be, a beacon of democracy).

 -- Anti-Nuclear Activism and the Youth: My mother claims that the persistence of anti-communist and other problematic perspectives come from the cold war, but in terms of Russia-phobia, many of the problematic voices are my age or younger. On my trip to Russia, I met many older Americans interested in deescalation, but very few youth, and I think the youth that were there had some sort of connection with Russia already. It seems that in this case, without cold war, people forgot about nuclear weapons, and without anti-nuclear activism, people forgot how to distrust US establishment (which hates Russia because it is a rival which refused to submit).
    In fact, Tulsi Gabbard changed her position on this regard in part due to a false alarm for a missile strike in Hawaii, causing her to realize that the US could be attacked, and the best defense is to avoid provoking a conflict.

 -- Russian Constitutional Changes -- These are necessary, as they are designed to decentralize power, which had been centralized by Yelson in 1993.
    I have been bothered about a clause which bans nationalized citizens from becoming governmental officials, as well as any Russian who have ever lived abroad. I won't get into details here but these are the types of clauses in laws which tend to get tacked on and to not be noticed as being problematic.

2020 January Update

So, I have been slow to work on my travel journal. Since I have gotten back from Russia at the end of October, I have been having issues with motivation and life. There are a few things which keep coming up.

A) I need a way to express certain political concepts, especially to not feel like people are considering my viewpoint impossible, as if, if I understand to be true certain things contrary to the liberals which the conservatives say, I must be one of the "bad guys."
    When I describe such things, everything keeps coming back to the need to change the dialog -- instead of talking conservatives vs moderates vs liberals, look instead at, say, "The Secret World," and separate people into Illuminati, Templars, and Dragons. Typical conservatives and liberals are both Templars in this picture -- they believe their ideology, and all who oppose are obviously evil or need to be saved from themselves.
    So if everyone talks in terms of good vs evil, and are opposed to people whom they claim to be only for their self interest, but I need things in terms of adapting and surviving ...
    People can debate if a given political figure is an angel or a demon, but as any fan of fantasy can point out, paladins and angels are often jerks. So, while I would always emphasize the humanity of humans, I also emphasize that even in the case when someone legitimately has the best of intentions, this, and not selfishness, can be what leads to the greatest harms, especially when you don't listen to those whom you intend to help. Also, this has been a significant part of my experience in life, and, therefore, is extremely important to me for people to recognize.

B) I feel more comfortable in Russia than the US, or even Canada.
    Since I have talked with many people, I recognize that for many people, the US is the best place for them. But just because it is the case for some people, doesn't mean it is the case for everyone, or even most people. My understanding has developed in lines with the concept that the US is just another country, like every other country, and like every other country, it has its own strengths and weaknesses, and needs to develop on its own terms, without glorification or "democracy shaming," (which is a favored game by the US and EU). The US is as legitimate as any other country, not better or worse. While one can debate the legitimacy of any government, there is a point where one needs to accept an all or none aspect to this debate. Every culture is different, has different needs, and every culture is a process, changing over time, able to correct itself if allowed on its own terms.
    Often explaining how I don't want to live in the US (and it is not even the political situation) is difficult. Explaining further that I want to live in Russia is also difficult. Just internally, it is a difficult concept for people to wrap their mind around, as it goes against everything they are trained.

I have pages which are coming. People can ask for links if they wish, for either travel journals or things which are more political. I am also hoping to restart progress on my story at some point.

November Update

I am back in Canada after being in Russia for September and October.

Story Update: I had made the decision to pause writing, as every time I approached this, I broke down. Things are better now, but not perfect. I will hopefully resume working on this project after I finish writing my travel journal. My plan is to redo the beginning of the story, with images. I had talked to people in order to edit the story, and realized that the visual details were in the images, and feel very bizarre for me to put in writing. I have also been told there are issues with the Sergei / Jennifer dialogs. I had never intended to get to a professional writing level with my writing from the beginning, but it would be helpful to improve things.

Travel Journals: I was in Russia again, and I still have not finished my documentation from the previous year. I do want to write something up to finish this, as well as talk about what occurred more recently. I doubt the order will be chronological, especially since I have forgotten many of the details from the older trip.

Personal Update: I have been dealing with certain issues since I got back from Russia, which I don't completely understand.
As far as I can tell, this issue is this:
   a) I was in Russia, and it feels more comfortable for me to be in Russia. I it is difficult for me to explain this, not because I don't have words to describe this, but because people feel the need to criticize how I describe this, which triggers the sense of alienation all over again.
   b) When I got back, I basically needed to "debrief" from the trip, put my thoughts together and figure out what I need to do. In order to do this, I needed to talk to people, but I had nobody to talk to who wouldn't instinctively attack me on what I had to say. Yes, that is a simplification, but it is also the truth of the situation.

Update - February 2019

I have split the hospital scene again, and have the second portion completed. It is currently 23 updates, and will hopefully end in December of this year. I still need to wait in order to start publishing, as I need to find a new editor for this. I will try increasing the rate of posting again in order to complete this portion by 2020.

After I finish editing, I will try to work on the rest of the hospital scene and get images for the dream sequence from the first section and the role-playing in the third section. I will also try to get the travel journal done from summer 2018.

Hopefully, I will be able to start illustrating the story after the end of Jennifer's time in the hospital.

С новым годом!

I am sorry I don't have any images for the New Year. I have been slow, although I am still working on both the next part of the story and my travel journals for this summer.

The ebook formats for the first subchapter will become available throughout the day.

Prologue (Russian Latinized with translations) -- epub, mobi, pdf
Prologue (Russian in Cyrillic)                           -- epub, mobi, pdf
Chapter 1, Subchapter 1 (without Cyrillic)       -- epub, mobi, pdf
Chapter 1, Subchapter 1 (with Cyrillic)             -- epub, mobi, pdf

Update - Dec 2018

This is the end of the first chapter. Writing of the second chapter has been delayed due to moving. I am at least halfway through the writing, but I will need also to have it edited before I start posting again. The second chapter will probably also be without images, but I will try to get images back for the third chapter.

I will get the compiled ebook and pdf formats for the first chapter out by the end of the month.

I will be trying to post my travel journals slowly as well. The link is here. Since I don't have these edited by another person, they can go up as soon as I finish writing them.

Status Update

It appears that I continue to delay getting these posts out.

Because I want to get the story out, I will post many of the updates this subchapter without images. It is possible that due to the nature of the dialogs, the large number of images used in the Prologue does not feel natural. It may also just be that putting aside drawing to deal with other things has interfered with my ability to get myself to want to draw.

I will relabel the old Chapter 1 updates with images and repost the updates using the main story tags without updates. By this weekend, I will get out update 3. I will try to get out 2 more updates this month, then switch to a schedule closer to every week until I catch up to where I want to be, with potential delays if there will be images in an update.

Status Update

I am sorry I have been slow in posting recently. I will probably be slow to post for a while longer as I finish up my current position and get ready to start the next one.

Prologue Notes

This prologue is a scene from a dream sequence which actually takes place later in the story. However Jennifer's memories start in this dream sequence before the beginning of the story. This should introduce the main character, the setting and the major themes.

The prologue has 14 updates. The text is done, but the images still need to be produced. I currently intend that I will start posting the prologue this month and finish posting the prologue in the summer of 2017. Hopefully by that point I will be ready to start the main story.

Notes for interpretation of the story where things may be unclear: 

Images and Text Formatting:
– There will be information in the images which is not in the text. I believe you can still follow the story without them, but I do not know for certain.
– Thoughts are in italic. All thoughts in this are Jennifer's.
– The dialog is colored slightly. Dark purple is for Jennifer; dark green is for Sergey. Who is speaking should be understandable without this, but this makes it more obvious.

Language Considerations:
While I do not currently intend to put all speech in the correct language in the entire story, that is what I have done for this part. Here I have used the Latinized version of the Russian text. For details on my transliteration and translations, see the transliteration scheme notes.

Grayscale Images:
Images will be done in color, so if it is in grayscale, people in that situation would be seeing what is shown in grayscale. The effect is meant to be real to the situation. In this sequence, there are two reasons for this: either what is shown is of something in grayscale (photograph, newspaper, etc.) or it is too dark to see in color.

References:
– References for the design of the apartment are given in the acknowledgement section.
– References the characters make to fiction are linked in the dialog. These links are black, so won't be obvious until you go over them.

Untranslated Terms:
Some terms used are frequently untranslated. (loan words) For the prologue, these are:
– stenka: A piece of furniture consisting of drawers and cabinets to store stuff. It also may have a place covered by glass used to store china or books. Common translations include wall cabinet or china cabinet.
– oblast: One of the levels of governance. In modern times equivalent to a state or providence.

Symbolism:
I may create a page where I discuss this (as there is plenty of unintended symbolism). Be warned as this will not be spoiler-free.

Update

My current plan is this:
I will begin by putting together a prologue to introduce the story. This will consist of the first part of the dream sequence used for foreshadowing later in the story. I have almost finished rewriting this, at which point I will go through trying to edit it and drawing the images. I expect to start posting before the end of the year, and will probably finish with this in the middle of 2017. After that, depending on my situation, I will try to start on the actual story.

Also, I am still looking for people who can help me who actually have time.

Update

So, I have decided that I will set this to be publicly viewable. This is so I do not have to deal with adding email addresses, not knowing if I can put in non-gmail email addresses. This project is still in the planning stages, and will not be put together until sometime in 2016. A few notes for newcomers:

1. I am looking for a co-author or someone who can help me put this together. The main requirement here is that we can talk for an hour or two each week. 
2. I looking for help in research: someone who knows something about the time period or references which would help me.

Intro - Maintenance

I am in the progress of putting this together, so this is currently set to private. I am still looking for co-authors for the story, as well as working on research. If anyone who is given access knows someone who would also like access, you can tell me, and I will add their name to the list. Keep in mind, however, that I will make it public when I am no longer in the initial development stages and no longer expect that everyone who is viewing this may be willing to help me put this together or at least knows that it is not in a viewable state.

Constructive criticism is appreciated, especially where you can actually help put this together. The following aspects can use assistance or are in progress:

1. Website Design - Right now, I still need to figure out how to get blogger to do what I want. Then, making sure everything is functional/easy to navigate will be useful. I have no desire to make it overly complex, however.
2. Naming - I still need a title for the story, and am currently using a working title. Naming chapters is also useful, but they do have names. Naming characters is also helpful if it uses the correct naming standard.
3. Writing - What is useful here is to either to help me find a co-author, or you can look at the outlines and comment on them. You will have to ask me for the outlines.
4. Drawings - finding good reference images
5. Research - If you can help me find the information I am looking for, that would be helpful. I will explain in more detail what I am looking for elsewhere, or you can ask me for the detailed document or talk to me.
6. References - I will try to put up the lists of all the people who helped me, the sources I used, and some of the fiction which I considered influenced this, including what the influence was. This is barely started, and will probably still have a lot of issues even when I am ready to make this public. If you have helped, and want to put your name up, put what you want to say somewhere (email or comment?), and I will put it up when I get that part of the website up. You can help site any of the other references as well.