Living close to work is great. You can get up reasonably early, go for a swim in a nearby pool and still be at the office by 9am to read your emails before starting work at 9.30am.

Not that I am requested to start work at 9.30am, but I am trying to, to keep up with all the things that I’ve to do. Working times here at uni are pretty flexible. Officially I have to do 37.5 hours a week, in fact I have to get all my tasks done, which in reality means I am currently working about 49 hours a week (on average).

I’ve experienced quite some frustrations with Australian bureaucracy the last weeks. The most annoying thing was that my working visa was on hold since christmas because they were waiting for a medical report to be sent from Vienna, which involved two different Austrian doctors, one translation office (144 EUR for 3 pages!), and another doctor here in Sydney, who had to approve it.

Officially I can’t work without a working visa, which is why I haven’t been paid for the last 4 weeks. However, fact is that I still had to work, because the semester starts next week and nobody else would have prepared my courses. So I’ve been working for the last weeks without being paid, and even doing long hours in order to get everything done.

Finally, I received a phone call from the immigration office this afternoon, to inform me that my visa has been approved, followed by this e-mail:

[Your visa has just been granted.] The approval email should get to you tomorrow. For the meantime, you may start working.

So, I may start working now. Thanks! In fact it should mean: you may be paid from now on.

Well, I hope I can get a deal to exchange the last weeks of unpaid work with some extra time for going back to Europe for research trips throughout this year.