About 2 hours before I was going to catch the train to Bangkok, we (that is, Mee) realised that the Immigration office might be shut on Saturdays. A quick web search later, and it turns out that yes, most government offices are closed on Saturdays, so we quickly changed the ticket. The next available train is on Monday night, so I’ll get to the Immigration office on Tuesday morning. That’s another three days added to my overstay bill, but on the other hand, it’s another three days to get my paperwork together for the visa renewal application and get some more work done.
So, not much I can do until I get a new visa stamp, except dig in and work harder and try to rectify the fact that we only have 13 UK pounds left in the bank. The project is coming along, but it’s still taking much longer than I or the client would have hoped. It should have been live at least a month ago. It’s simple enough, but again I keep going round in circles redesigning parts of the database schema and PHP layers, trying to satisfy the (often unclear or conflicting) requirements of the user interface I’ve been given to work to. It would have been done and dusted by now if the basic requirements had been analysed and articulated, so that the user interface and database design could have been driven by decent use-case examples. I started doing such an analysis when I started the job, and I’m kicking myself for ditching that approach and trying (again) to just interpret the set of static user interfaces I’ve been given as an application design spec. Anyway, none of this has helped deliver the project or put my bank balance back at safe levels.
Luckily, the guys I’m working for have come good on a couple of emergency invoices for smaller jobs that I sent, and even managed an advance on the job I’m currently working on. This is a great weight off my mind, as without that advance, I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough money to renew my working visa/permit. Massive thanks to Prodco for helping me to remain a legal alien!
Not had much time for anything of a free software nature. I’m just about keeping on top of my responsibilities as GNOME sysadmin, and still failing miserably to find time to finish off my work on gtranslator or any other free software projects I’m involved in. When I’m not working on paid projects or travelling around half of Asia fulfilling daft visa requirements, I’ve been spending time clearing up in the garden, which I’ve found to be a great way to relax, get some exercise and relieve the stress of the recent few weeks.
The weather here has been mostly hot and muggy. It’s the kind of weather that gives you a mild headache, and generally makes you want to lie down or sleep all day. I haven’t been able to get rid of a nasty cold I’ve had since my last trip to Bangkok (where it rained torrentially). It’s not ideal working conditions. The mugginess should start to subside after next month, which is usually the hottest month of the Thai year, and the month in which they celebrate ‘Songkram’, the Thai new year.