Bureaucracy

Sooooo last Friday night my roommate came home and told me that she had just learned that the company apartment we're living in was going to be sold on December 10th, so we had to find a new place to live!!!!

This is entirely too short notice, especially for my poor roommate, who has a week long business trip starting on Dec 2nd! She has the option to move into a different company apartment, but apparently there's only one free room, so I can't go with her. However, she told me that she doesn't want to have to get used to a new roommate or live with someone she actually sees at work every day, so she wants to keep living with me! Which is nice, but puts a lot of pressure on her to find a new place before her trip. :(

I, unfortunately, am not much help in this apartment search, because my Chinese is nowhere near good enough to find us a place at a reasonable price, and the Shenzhen real estate market is notoriously difficult...

UPDATE: It is now just past midnight on December 2nd, and my roommate's week-long trip has become a two week long trip, so she is currently packing and will move out in the morning to the new company apartment. I'm gonna miss her. (The landlord, apparently, will not budge on this move-out date...yikes).

ALSO we got maybe a week's notice that for some reason our salaries have to be deposited into a Bank of China account, and I'm here with my Merchant Bank of China card going "....okay..........."
And as it turns out (after a trip on Tuesday with an obliging co-worker), I cannot get a Bank of China card because my visa is still a travel visa, despite the fact that I've visited the company headquarters multiple times to fill out paperwork for applying for a business visa.

AND I have to go to Hong Kong for two days right before December 10th so that I don't overstay this visa, AND our school is having a show on the 4th so we have extra rehearsals before then so I can't very well search for an apartment (or...honestly even apply for one independently, I think, considering my lack of a residence permit.......YIKES)

In summary: pray for me. I'm sure I'll get through this, but it'll be nice to have the support haha.

<3