Building a new lifestyle during the pandemic

Hello everyone, it’s Shaohui Zhang from France again this week. I bet since the outbreak of the unfortunate Covid-19 pandemic, every individuals have to have started adapting their lifestyles so as to compromise on the restrictions imposed by the situation. Of course, sometimes I also feel a wee bit moody and reluctant to working from home and no being able to enjoy my life in France to the fullest; but for most of the time, I have remained content by building a new lifestyle.

First of all, the university was forced to close hence no more contact teaching. Luckily, in France, the second semester is more like an longer version of ‘Applied period’, during which time, you get to choose an internship with the topic that interests you the most. Thanks to this special trait of the second year study in France, I do not feel like much of my time has been wasted. On the contrary, I have more free time to focus on the particular track of forestry, i.e. remote sensing and Lidar, and continue to build up my coding skills in R. Working from home is not much of an issue to me as my supervisor is in close contact with me on a daily basis. For example, we built an R project in which we can freely exchange our code scripts whenever I run into a problem. My supervisor will then correct my codes with some additional comments that explain my bugs.

 Place Stanislas, Nancy

Outside work, I am in a colocation with my French friend. Luckily we both are studying forestry, which gives us many things in common. We both are big foodies; as a result, we often cook together and share. Interesting cultural exchange right? That is why I would suggest that, if you are going to live abroad for some time, living with people from other countries is an amazing experience!

Nancy Cathedral,  Nancy

Lastly, it is almost two years since I left home. How time flies! Living abroad certainly means feeling homesick from time to time. At some point, you start craving for having some friends who share the same language as well as for the food from your local regions. In Nancy, there is a middle-sized Chinese community and several Asian markets. In my case, these things have been a cherry on top of my second year in France. Nancy is pretty, like I have said so many times. Attached some photos taken a few days earlier when it was warm and sunny.

Just a street I like much 😛

Wish more bright times (sunny or not, definitely a time without Covid-19) coming soon!