Blog 1 : Starting the project in the time of corona... (part 1)

Who would have guessed that 2020 would be this interesting!

At the beginning of the year, I was really excited about starting this SmOoC project which was originally scheduled to be started in April. Since January, I started to prepare my application for the researcher visa, filed an application in early February and received my Visa in the middle of February... little did I know that the story will be completely different.

flybe
Flybe flight Soton to Paris

 

Even thou in January and February I have already heard about the spread of coronavirus in China, I didn't expect that the impact will be as huge as EU border closure. So with my Visa at hand, I bought my flight ticket from Southampton to Paris for the flight on April 1st using Flybe airlines. But the first bad news came soon after! Due to the reduction in the number of costumers, the airlines had a liquidity issue and had to file for bankruptcy. So then I bought another flight ticket, this time from London to Paris. But a few days later, on March 17th, France government announced the confinement measure to prevent the spread of the virus. Because of that, the new recruitment process in UBFC and Femto-St was on hold until May, at least, depending on the situation, which nobody knew for sure.  Because of that, the starting date of the project must be delayed!

So what did I do? Stay tuned for the part 2 of the story :)