What a wild ride...

The past few days feel like I've been stuck in stop and go traffic, except when it goes, it hits 90 mph, and then stops suddenly... either way, no good for the system. After the initial excitement about my upcoming triumphant return to my native soil for an interview at the Tufts University School of Medicine, I realized that there might be a small hiccup with my visa situation... that hiccup being that if I left China for my interview on October 13th, with my current passport and visa, I would be unable to return, which would clearly cause some minor issues with my current employment situation. After managing to convey my concerns and the time constraints I was facing to the new assistant in Human Resources, Violet, I was set up with a letter written in Chinese that I was supposed to give to my property manager when I got home after work on Thursday, which I did. I can't imagine why it didn't go smoothly, or why I wasn't at least a little concerned when I realized the letter I had been given consisted of only one sentence... which I couldn't read. A few phone calls to some of my Chinese-speaking friends and I finally got the lady behind the desk downstairs to hand over what I thought was an "official" letter from the company stating that I did, in fact, currently reside in Room 1001 of Building 5 on Lane 188 off of Shuangliu Road. That last sentence is what we, in the blogging community, call foreshadowing... the letter was not, in fact, "official" at all, and not what I needed to take with me to the police station the next morning to get my temporary residency papers. These papers I speak of are necessary to receive a special extended temporary residence F-visa, good for 6 months and unlimited entry and exits from the People's Republic of China.

I spent Thursday night in and finished off a batch of essays for the last of my med school applications but ended up passing out on the couch without setting an alarm. Miraculously, I awoke at 7:45 am without an alarm, showered and headed to the police station, confident that I had in my possession a golden ticket to legal residency in Shanghai. Nothing like a cultural and language barriers to dispel any false sense of security I might have had walking into the police station; the only words the lady behind the desk could get across to me were "You get big fine, too late, 500 RMB!" It was time to call in some backup.

Alice came to my rescue in record time and an hour, and repeated calls to the human resources department at the hospital later, we left the police department with a small, yellow carbon-copy of a "Form for Temporary Residency in Shanghai." By falling back on the trusty "He's white and doesn't understand." card also allowed Alice to get me out of the hefty fine I should have gotten for not registering with the police within 24 hours of my arrival... oops, I was only 68 days late!

Meanwhile, work has been going at the same unpredictable pace... I'm drawing some decent conclusions and wrapping up my report on the marketing survey of health care demand by foreigners in Shanghai, which is nice... but I'm still stuck at my special olympics desk in the marketing department so I'm not allowed to work on the budget project (the budgets contain complete salary data for every employee in the hospital, an incredibly sensitive and confidential topic in United Family Hospitals and Clinics.)

Susie Wang, the head of HR has said she'll be getting back to me with a new contract Monday or Tuesday of next week and Violet currently has my passport (which makes me a little nervous) and should have my new visa for me by Thursday in time for me to leave on Friday afternoon for Vietnam and the sunny beaches of Nha Troung and Hoi An. More updates to come, enjoy the weekend and happy holidays to my Jewish readers.