goddamnmotherfuckincocksuckinpricks

This is a little frustrating, but I'm taking it in stride. I'm really tired of dealing with visas and passports and work permits and government officials. Really. Hopefully it will all be over soon... Ok, so here's what happened today:

My work permit/visa/ARC (alien resident card) for Taiwan expires on Friday, and according to the immigration website I can get a 1 year extension on the visa. I had all the necessary documents, went in to the office and applied for the extension. Ok. The officer was very helpful and everything went smoothly; he had stamped and dated everything in the right places, switched my visa into my new passport and everything was great. That is, until he made me photocopy my work permit letter. I came back from the photocopier, and as he was scanning the documents a final time he noticed that the work permit letter from my school was the one I had used last year, and that in order to get an extension on my visa I would need to get a new letter, a new health check and THEN reapply. Of course, this is ridiculous, because that is the process for getting an entirely new visa, not an extension of a current visa. And also that process takes one to three weeks, whereas I have only three days until the ARC expires. When I told this to the officer he shrugged, like, "Sorry, pal, I don't make the rules."

My boss is currently researching the internets and calling officials to see if anything can be done. I'm not holding my breath. What will I do if it expires? Well, one option is to leave the country Friday night and come back Saturday on a visitor's visa, which will cost me hundreds of dollars. Another option, although highly frowned upon, is to overstay my visa. I'll end up having to pay about $100 fine, plus I'll have a nasty stamp in my passport, which might make entering the UK rather tricky. Hopefully the UK visa officials don't read my blog. Or if they do, they take my story into consideration and let me in.

Cross your fingers.