Today was rough. Went to immigration because my 2-month Thai Tourist visa was set to expire. I arrived in Thailand on Dec. 11, went to immigration on Feb. 10, thinking I would renew my visa 1 day in advance. Immigration tells me I overstayed my visa by 2 days. I argue that I didn’t. Immigration won that battle. I was fined 1,000 baht ($34). The worst part was they stamped an entire page in my passport saying that I had overstayed by 2 days. Just let me pay the fine and move on, no need to give me a permanent reminder that somehow 2 months from Dec. 11 ends on Feb. 8. I think my error was thinking it was 2 months and not 60 days. Whoops.

Chiangmai immigration also informs me that I failed to call them 24 hours after I arrived and told them where I was staying, despite filling in several forms at airport immigration with my intended address after quarantine. I was fined 1,600 baht ($54). I told them I wanted to extend my visa by 2 months as that was a new policy they had due to COVID. They acknowledged that, indeed it was, but first, I needed to do a 1-month extension of my tourist visa, and then after that, I could apply for the 2-month COVID extension. 1-month tourist extension cost me 1,900 baht ($64), and in 1 month, I’ll extend it again for another 1,900 baht. Expensive day at immigration.

On a side note, I’ve also been applying for media jobs in Singapore and once again realized how much I hate applying for jobs. A ton of work goes into a single application, all for a form-generated e-mail 6 weeks later informing me that they’ve decided to pursue other candidates. I’m certainly not at a point in my career where I would be headhunted and given a “personal” job application experience, but these days, with ATS and automatic e-mail replies and tedious online forms, applying for jobs feels a lot like I’m trying to beat an algorithm rather than actually trying to find a mutually suitable work environment.