The Shame

It happened, I got 7-balled. I honestly did not think it was going to happen, but it happened. I was really hoping I could avoid being included in the 7 ball wall of shame. I mentioned in one of my previous posts that if I was ever 7-balled I would not be able to show my face at the pool table again, but fortunately for me, somebody else got 7-balled in a much more embarrassing way, which took all the attention away from my game and my shame. In the game itself I did not do too bad, it was more that my opponent had a very good game and I never really had any easy shots; it was a combination of my opponent having a really good game and me getting very few shots and no easy ones. But as I said, nobody really paid much attention to my game thankfully and I did not have any problem playing again later that day.

A week later, we had our very first gaming charity event. It was on Monday after work. Some of us gathered to play some Mario Kart on the Wii U and it was really fun, although it would have been much better with 4 players at a time, but we only had two controllers for the tournament. Most of the people that played had not played the game before, so it was really easy beating them. I had only played Mario Kart on the Wii U once before, but I have played Mario Kart throughout my life, so the only thing hard thing for me was not being familiar with the levels.

I got first place in the tournament after about 5 games, although to be honest, I was the second best that night. One of the trainers that was also playing in the tournament was so good that she had to play with a ridiculous handicap to make it more fair to the rest of the players; she had to wear thick gloves and play with the controller upside down which made it extremely difficult for her and she ended up getting eliminated. I only had to wear the gloves and thankfully they did not make me play with the controller upside down!

Since my last post, I had the opportunity to try curry for the first time. I was under the impression that fish and chips were the most popular dish here in the UK; at least it was the one I heard about the most before coming here. But I have been told now that people eat a lot of curry here and is a very common dish here too, if not the most common one, so I finally tried it last week and I loved it. I had some madras curry with some naan bread, and I really enjoyed it, so much actually that I ordered curry again a couple of days later. The second time though, my friend challenged me to order the spiciest curry that I could get. I ended giving in to the peer pressure and ordered some vindaloo curry, which is the spiciest one that I could get from the place we ordered. It was really good, and it was just at my limit of spiciness that I could handle; spicy enough for it to make me sweat but not too spicy that I could not enjoy my food. I will probably be eating curry very often now until I go back to America.

I only have 4 more weeks left until I go back to America. It will be a sad day when I have to say goodbye to the UK and to all the friends I have made during my stay, but I have enjoyed it so much and it is certainly an experience that I will never forget.

Realizing My Dream of Visiting Anfield

These past few weeks at the academy I have been self-studying mostly by myself learning ITIL. To be honest, it has gotten a bit dull at times, and not because the material is not useful or not interesting, but because of how some of the material is presented and how little hands-on work I was able to do, but for the most part, it still feels good and rewarding to be learning new things everyday here at the academy.

After learning ITIL, I started working on learning ServiceNow for this past week, and it has been much more interesting work. For me, it is always exciting to work on something and be able to see the results of my work. Working on ServiceNow and going through the tutorial has been a very fun learning experience and certainly the type of work that I enjoy doing. I have been working with ServiceNow just for just one week so far but I have been told that I will keep working on this and learning ServiceNow for the next couple of weeks which seems like more exciting stuff is to come, and I am really looking forward to it.

Outside of work I have been here and there but if I am being honest, I have not done as many things as I would have liked, mainly because if I want to go somewhere and visit a new place or another city, I have to do it during the weekend, which limits the places I can go to and how far I can go. But I have been able to do one thing which I was definitely going to do during my stay here; it was a dream of mine which I did not think I would have the opportunity to realize it so soon. I am talking about going to Liverpool and visiting Anfield. I am a big Liverpool FC supporter, a fact that I have not been very vocal about because many of the locals would not appreciate it. Anybody who is even a bit familiar with English football knows about the huge rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester United so I just decided to be cautious as to who I tell I support Liverpool. But getting the opportunity to visit Anfield, which is the stadium Liverpool play in, was certainly a dream come true. I have been a supporter for quite some time now, and every time I would watch Liverpool play I would just dream of being inside the stadium and getting to watch a match live. I was finally able to make it to the stadium and just standing there in front of the Kop filled me with joy and excitement even if the stadium was empty, I did not care, it was definitely a dream come true. I will definitely have to come back to Liverpool and to Anfield and watch a match; I'll somehow get a ticket. No matter how much I hear about the famous atmosphere that the fans make during the games, it is something which I have to experience first hand before I go back to America. I am also a big Beatles fan, so I will also have to come back to Liverpool and visit the Cavern Club and the Beatles museum and go to London and visit Abbey Road.

I have already spent 6 weeks in Manchester and at QA Academy, which means that I am halfway through my stay here. Time certainly seems to be flying by rather quickly, and I am enjoying myself here in the UK. I know it will be a sad day when I have to say goodbye to this city and to all the people that I have met so far, and who knows when I'll be seeing them again, but I will make the best of the time that I still have left and try to enjoy myself as much as possible while I'm still here.

Getting through EA and onto Java

It has been four weeks now since I arrived in Manchester, and these past two weeks have certainly been much better than the first two. I have finally learned to cope with the cold Manchester weather, although it would still be nice to get to get a sunny day every once in a while, but if it's ever sunny here, it is only for a few hours and then it does not take long for the clouds to completely cover the sky again. I do miss being able to go out wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the middle of winter and still be hot. You could say I'm spoiled in that sense, but as I already mentioned, I am finally coping with the change in weather and it is not too bad.

At the academy, these last two weeks have certainly been more enjoyable and less stressful than the first two. The first two weeks we spent them learning Enterprise Architecture, and I am always up for learning new things, specially when I know that they are going to help me in the workplace, but I would be lying if I didn't say that it got quite stressful at times. Most of the time when we were given a task, my team and I would do it to the best of our knowledge and abilities; we would work as a team to complete the task, but most of the time we would do it wrong. But as we learned more about enterprise architecture, we got the hang of it a bit more although I can't say that in the end we were good at it; we got better, but we still missed some of the important things.

The next two weeks were certainly better. The third week we started learning Java, and as soon as I knew we were getting into Java, I got really excited; I knew this was my time to shine. After a few hours of going over a quick overview of Java, we were given a project to work on. Java is my strongest programming language so I felt pretty comfortable with it and I enjoyed helping a couple of my fellow trainees whenever they got stuck with something. Unfortunately, we only spent a week working with Java, when I thought we would be spending two weeks, but they still expected us to work on our project for two weeks while we were busy working on other things. I certainly would have liked to have a little more time to work on my project. I would have been able to turn in a complete and much more polished project. My project was pretty much only missing the GUI, other than that it was complete for the most part.

I have been having a great time so far. I have been getting better at pool which means that the chances of me getting 7-balled get lower every time. The only time I would probably get 7-balled is if my opponent is having a great game and does not let me take any shots, or just one or two, which again is very unlikely.

Friday's mandatory fun time is always fun, everybody gets along and we always have a good time playing all sorts of different games, most of them new to me. Time is flying by rather quickly; I have already been here for almost a month, and when I least expect it it will be time to go back to America, which is likely to be a sad day, but I will try and make the most of the time I still have left here in Manchester.

My First Two Weeks in a New Place

From the moment it became certain that I was going across the Atlantic to the UK, I was filled with a feeling of excitement that I was going to have the opportunity to travel and experience a whole new culture. After 16 hours of flying and having to wait at airports, and with minimal sleep, I finally landed in Manchester, and all my tiredness and sleepiness went away, I was hit with a feel of excitement. I have not done a lot of traveling in my life, so this fact certainly added excitement to the moment when I arrived to a new country so far from home.

I was curious to see how different people would be from what I am used to seeing and how they would treat me as a foreigner, but so far everybody has been really nice, I would actually say that people here are nicer than people from California, or maybe it just has to do with the fact that I do not pay that much attention to people from California since it is what I am used to, whereas here in the UK, I pay more attention to these sort of things; I analyze all the differences with my own culture.

After the taxi picked me up from the airport we headed for the apartments where I would be staying during my training. When I arrived to the apartments I met Kathryn and a few of my fellow trainees. We did not really get time to introduce ourselves, we all just headed to our corresponding apartments. After getting a few hours to settle in what is going to be my new home for the next 12 weeks, I headed to the office to meet the QA team and the rest of my fellow trainees.

 It was so nice meeting everybody. One of the first things that I noticed was that everybody in the office seemed to be around the same age and the whole place had a really young vibe to it, which I certainly liked. It didn't take long for somebody to challenge me to a game of pool, which is a big thing in the office. I hadn't played pool in years, but I was able to get a few lucky shots and everybody that was watching thought that one of the new guys was about to "7 ball" somebody, which is basically the term that we use when one person beats another one without the other person getting any balls in, the losing person is then placed in the wall of shame, which is where all the previous people that have been 7-balled are. Unfortunately my luck did not last long but I was still able to win. The games that I have played since then have made people realize that I am actually not good at pool, but as long as I do not get 7-balled I will still be able to show my face at the pool table.

Outside of work, I have been enjoying walking around Manchester and sightseeing. Everything from the buildings to the cars, it is all so different from California; it is all just how I imagined it from seeing the UK portrayed in the TV. One thing I do miss from California is the sun, which is rarely seen here in Manchester; the weather is certainly one of the few things from home that I will probably be missing the most during my stay here. I am used to nice warm beach weather, which is the total opposite from the Manchester weather.

I have been for 2 weeks already and I have been having a great time so far. Everybody in the office is nice and I have been learning quite a lot of new things. It has been challenging so far and I plan on getting more into the actual lectures in my next post.
I am looking forward to interacting more with the people here in the office and learning more things about the culture here in the UK. I am still trying to get used to the weather but at least I can just put on a couple of jackets and be comfortable to walk around.