Back in the Trap

 Forgive me Father it has been two months since my last post. I always say I'm going to post more often and then I never do. Well like most of life either nothing's happening so there's nothing to write or everything's happening and I don't have time to write it. Maybe that will change one day but for now, I'm going to insert a brief post just to catch everyone up on what's going on.

First off I say everyone and I'm fully aware no one reads this. But that's okay I'm not dissuaded and I kind of like it. I get to say whatever I want and I don't have to worry about anyone reading or judging the post. So today's post is going to be about yet another dire situation I've gotten myself into. no scratch that. it's not another one it's the same one. in January of this year, my stay in Hanoi Vietnam came to an abrupt end when the government canceled its automatic visa extension program. Well, that was frustrating. I had to start every discussion of this with how grateful I am that they allowed me to remain for the two years of covid. it's not as if they had to do that and it was incredibly helpful to me for them to do it. I very much wanted to be able to sign a contract with the school in Hanoi which is an offer I had before they ended the program but it just didn't work out like that.

Anyway since then I have been trying desperately to get back into China to complete the paperwork necessary for that. I have also been simultaneously trying not to get go back to the United States because I know what kind of a trap it is. I mentioned that I had walked back into this trap when I was fairly depressed a few months ago and Scott reassured me being the nice guy that he is that I hadn't walked into a trap and everything is going to be all right or something along those lines and while I appreciate the Good vibes he was sending, the United States is a trap. I mean I can arrive here with a little bit of cash an educated person an American-born citizen with an education and there is nowhere I can think of that I can go into the country and not be homeless in two weeks because if you don't have lots and lots of money you can't get home and you can't get around town and if you don't have a computer and can afford high-speed internet access you can't find a job. I've been here nearly 6 months now and there's nothing. unemployment right here is over 10%, they do not need any educated workers they do not need any uneducated workers because the island is full of people looking for jobs there are only a few types of jobs that are in high demand and that would be in healthcare the only reason they have those is that the Commonwealth here was smart enough to take all of the Medicaid on offer from the federal government which is great but unfortunately they haven't managed the economy to generate any more jobs and quite frankly neither has any of the rest of the country and it's much more expensive to live there. Had I been able to afford to go back to the mainland I would now be looking at you know a thousand plus dollars a month for rent instead of $120 which I can't pay here and I still wouldn't have a job. Anyway, I guess I should get to the point which is I will soon empty the last dollars of my bank account, and if I'm lucky it will be enough to pay rent for December, and then I will not be able to pay rent for January and I don't see any way I can make money before January there is not a realistic chance of getting a job I can no longer do online work because the computer is not functioning well enough. I can't get the thousand or so dollars it will take to get the paperwork to get into China which is what I've been trying to do all year so that's kind of off the table now. Yeah I've stepped into the trap and I didn't want to do it and I knew it was there and the Chinese requirement to be in your home country to apply for a work visa screwed me and back when I found that out I even looked into Vietnam cuz I thought if I can get to Vietnam instead and work somewhere there but the schools were not reopened there and quite frankly I'm not sure that they're even open for visas. They had said much earlier this year that they were reopening for tourists and everybody could come in and then when I went to get a visa to go back into Vietnam which I would have loved to have been able to do they said at the embassy we're not doing that we're not offering any visas. That shit has caused most of the problems this year I was under the impression I would be able to cross borders and it turns out virtually no one was allowing that

Well anyway maybe these short posts are better I just want to wanted to be able to make this note to get out my frustration I also want to leave you with a picture from my Thanksgiving here in Saipan which was very nice and which I am grateful to my friends Charlie and Christine for inviting me

Finally, I want to say that I'm going to try and start posting pictures of things I've done in the past and talk more about travel on this blog. As is often the case it seems like I may only have a few weeks left so I wanted to try and post some nice things from the past. This is close to Christmas so I was going to start with some December things from previous years and maybe just sprinkle in updates as I go through.