A day in the life of an illegal immigrant

Last night sometime around midnight a thought dawned on me that I was supposed to check my passport to see when my visa expires. I told one of the other volunteers to remind me to do so, but I think I asked the wrong volunteer. Instead of putting it off till morning, I climbed out of bed (aka. up of the floor) and saw the stamp in my passport indicating I was four days past my allowed stay in the country. The person in charge of sending in the paperwork to renew my visa hadn't done it a month ago when it was due. Now there's no way I can really keep my non immigrant visa (that I know of) and my best option is to go on a "visa run" to Cambodia tomorrow. It'll cost me $50 for the whole trip (lunch IS included so I'm happy about that) with some kind of agency that helps out with these things. I figured since this is my first time going to Cambodia to do this I better pay the agency than let everyone at the border try to rip me off wherever they can. Especially since I'm switching from a non immigrant visa to a 30 tourist stamp, and I'll have to pay a fine for the days I overstayed. The only problem with a 30 stamp is that my flight back to America is in about 35 days (seems like it's coming too quick). This means I'll have to leave the country again, or stay gone this time for about 5 or 6 days. I'm opting to plan a trip outside Thailand towards the end of my stay. Another volunteer has to leave also so at least I should have some company then.

I'm not surprised that I didn't even think about my visa expiring till it already had. I tend not to think about things like that, especially when someone else is supposed to be doing it. It's kind of just out of mind for me. I'm also not surprised that the person in charge of doing it didn't think about it either. I am a little irritated about the whole situation though. It's costing me extra time and money that I shouldn't need to give up. I should still be back to go to the childrens museum friday, but I told the government I can't take the kid I was going to. If something happens and I have to stay in Cambodia or something like that I don't want the kid to be sitting there waiting. All the other volunteers already have kids they are taking so I will just go along with them and help out with whatever. That's not a big deal.

Today we were taking a group of kids from work to go swimming at this international school in Bangkok. The kids were pretty excited because the pool at the government wards has been under construction and they haven't swam in a long time. After loading all the kids up in a bus and trekking them into Bangkok, and waiting outside for half hour for the guy who set it up to come down and meet us, we were told that the pool was being used by someone else and we weren't going to be able to swim. But we could take the kids over to sit outside at the playground. Thailand.