Calling Sydney

Winter for real

martin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:10:00 +0000

It’s time to buy a heater I think. 16 degrees in my apartment last night when I came home and it went down to 14 degrees this morning. Reminds me of my childhood at the farm and my dad’s old house in the woodquarter. I still don’t understand why Australians didn’t care more about insulation when they were building most of the houses, and for example put in at least two-layered glass windows. Instead much electricity is used in summer for air conditioning and in winter for heating. So much about global warming and energy awareness.

Vienna visiting

martin — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:54:22 +0000

Sorry once again for the long silence and low (ähm) number of posts recently. I think I’ll have to declare this blog officially for dead soon. I’ve already started setting up a new blog, but haven’t had time to put it online. Too busy as always.

Anyway, what I wanted to announce: I’m visiting Vienna next Friday, and will stay there for 2-3 weeks. So hope to see you all soon!

Australian winter

martin — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:13:15 +0000

My weather widget just reminded me that it’s one of the rare times of the year, when the temperature in Sydney and Vienna are the same. At least unlike last year on 20 May it’s not colder in Vienna than in Sydney.

Australien um 999 EUR

martin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:40:50 +0000

COCO Tours, bei denen ich meine letzten AUS Flüge gebucht habe, hat gerade ein Spring Special. 999 EUR Hin- und Rückflug (eine Teilstrecke im A380!) und inklusive Camper für 14 Tage. Abreisedatum muss zwischen dem 12.4. und 8.6. liegen. Das nur als Info, falls mich jemand spontan besuchen kommen will :) Flüge im Winter sind übrigens immer teurer, weil das hier Saison ist.

Morning swim and working hours

martin — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:39:50 +0000

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).

Keys

martin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:55:15 +0000

I finally got the keys to my new studio today. Just went there to have a quick look. It’s in a pretty good condition – for Australian standards, just very small, the sink in the bathroom is probably one of the smallest sinks I’ve ever seen, and there was a praying mantis (Gottesanbeterin) sitting on the ceiling when I came there. – First time I saw one here in Australia. It was small too, just like the studio.

And the best: it’s only a 10 minutes walk to work – door to door.

I didn’t bring my camera, so still no pictures. Back to work now. Then going to Ikea first thing tomorrow morning to buy furniture!

7

martin — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 02:32:24 +0000

Only 7 more days until I get the keys to my new apartment. Can’t wait for that. After 5 weeks I’m a bit sick of living out of my bags and shared kitchen. Especially the lodge where I stayed the last two weeks was quite a challenge, with cockroaches everywhere, even in my bed. Apparently the smaller breed is the evil. They survive everything and hence are hard to get rid of. You almost start to like the big ones after sharing a room for two weeks with the small bastards.

Visa frustrations resolved

martin — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:20:43 +0000

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.

The cute side of the bush fires

martin — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:36:40 +0000

I’m sure the bush fires and their devastating consequences have been well-covered in the news in Europe. So I don’t need to explain that here. Just because some people where asking – Sydney has not been affected by the fires.

The cute side of the bush fires are those images and videos popping up of Koalas feeding on water. They are usually very shy and it’s rare to see them in the wild, that’s why it’s amazing to see them coming so close to people now. And I guess the pictures have been taken up gladly by Australians, since they “provided some heart-warming relief after days of devastation” as the Daily Mail writes.

(The sources of the images are unknown to me, since I received them through e-mail.)

Blog considerations

martin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:33:43 +0000

I think I need a new blog. This one feels outdated. But considering how busy I am at the moment with organising my life here in Sydney and setting up the courses at Sydney Uni for the new semester which starts on 3 March, I don’t think I’ll have time to set up a new blog anyway.