Coming soon: complaining about taxes!

I just got official, finally! I just got my paperwork for a visa change...and can now legally work in this country. I had been on a residence visa as Stu's spouse (or, as I much prefer it in Swedish, Stu's fru.) You can't work on that thing, you can only "reside." I didn't bother to change my visa status to student back in August because it cost 1.000:-, we had just paid for it a few months prior, and I am insanely cheap. But we always planned to get at least part-time jobs while here, and that's probably going to have to happen sooner, rather than later. And then, I can officially start complaining about high Swedish tax rates (okay, I do that already...we pay 25% VAT!) Speaking of...our US W2's should be coming soon. That should be depressing.

So I just got the notice in the mail that I am all set to get a real job, aside from what promises to be a painful trip to the Immigration office to get the stamp in my passport! Good thing, too, because it was all in-process when we traveled to London, and we held up the lines leaving and coming while they scrutinized my passport. They are EU, but have different regulations, so the passport check IN Sweden was much more rigorous than when we visited Italy. Strange? Yes. And no, they didn't give two flips about Stu's passport.

Anyway, happy day! And I turned in an exam and did a presentation this morning (both went well) and now am finally done with the first semester of this graduate program. We are going to friends' house for dinner tonight, and I am in charge of wine and dessert. I am thinking something chocolate to celebrate!