I hesitated quite for a long time to write about my typical day, as this is one of the required topic for this Erasmus blog.

Well, there are reasons for this hesitation: first, I don’t think that my life in Groningen is kind of “amazing” or “special”, compared to my life in Paris, or another student’s life. You might expect that this exchange year will be about “parties, drinks, new friends, travels, etc. all the time”. Well, it can be. Actually, some former exchange students even told me that this Erasmus year was the most amazing year of their life. But that is not my choice. To be honest, I think the reason behind this difference is that I’ve been being abroad for more than 2 years, and I really hope to stay in Europe for much longer. Thus, I don’t have the idea kind of “this is my one-in-a-lifetime year, so I have to travel, going to the museums, parties etc. as much as I can” but something more like “I have to make my life an usual and livable life for a long term; and do my best to stay, especially about my career”. I’m convinced that these different attitudes influence your lifestyle a lot on the one hand and one the other hand I’m very happy that not everyone has chance to experience a long “adventure” that I’ve been living now.

Second, depending on the period, I had different charge of work for school. For instance, in the second bloc of my first semester, we had much less classes than in the first bloc. Thus, I stayed at home and worked by myself most of the time: during the second haft of the semester, I went to school about twice a week. For this next semester, it’s very probably that I will have to go to school at least 4 times a week.

Last but not least, I have a very unhealthy lifestyle and I’m quite ashamed about it.

Thus, my typical day can start at 8 AM or 9 AM if I have class in the morning or at 10 or 11 AM if the class is in the afternoon. Sometimes, I get up even later, if the night before, I stayed awake until (very) late, as I’m a “night person” and prefer working at night. My “rule” is simply to count like 8 hours to sleep.

It will take me about 30 minutes for preparation, 40 minutes to go to school by bike or 1 hour by bus. As the weather in Groningen is quite rude, after class, I just want to go home. In some special occasion, I stayed a little bit later in the “Innovation lab” to work, but I’ve never studied in the library. Indeed, we didn’t use papers or books during the first semester but only the laptops.

The afternoon, I have dinner quite quickly: I cook once for several days and unlike many other Asians, I hardly cook rice or Asian food but prefer fast and western food like spaghetti, bread, steak, etc. (usually mixed with Vietnamese sauces, in my own style). Indeed, on the one hand, I have no problem eating western food, this is also much cheaper and more practical, and on the other hand, I don’t want to spend like hours to cook a meal then “savor it for 15 minutes with…my computer”.

Most of my time I spend with my…laptop (sadly): to work on my assignments, the project; to read newspapers, to watch TV and movies; to go online, chat with friends or write e-mails to my parents; to search for information, etc. Besides, I read books and newspapers and study.

I hardly go out during the week, but mainly on the weekend.