Tag: shropshire

Refreshing

It's been a week and a half since I've joined a ThoughtWorks project in London. It's been such a refreshing change. The whole team lives and breathes Agile. The code base is not the cleanest I've worked on but actually easier to work with because the team made sensible compromises and did not being stubborn about ideas or patterns. (Actually we still have some way to go on the Mingle front, but that's another story.) We are doing TDD, continuous integration, pair programming with regular rotation, 9-5:30 hours, everyone are treated as equal, basically the whole nine yards! I can foresee the next three months will just disappear quickly. You know what they say, time flies by when you are having fun…

As for London itself, I was pleasantly surprised by all the good/new stuff they have. But at the same time, the Tube still pisses me off, with the never ending tunnels and the asinine system of having to swipe your ticket/card on exit. At least the travel cost is paid for by my company!

I'm going up to Shropshire this weekend to visit my parents. Instead of taking a 2+ hours train ride, I'll be driving a rental car up. I know, it's not environmentally friendly but consider the total amount of driving I haven't done in the last 7 years, I think I can take this carbon emission hit.

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The X’mas visit

Southern end of Bridgnorth High St.

Southern end of Bridgnorth High St.

Apart from visiting families and working on my mom's computers, I've also managed to meet up with my secondary/high school friend Julia in Bridgnorth (where I lived in the UK and went to school for over 4 years). To give a scale of how small a town Bridgnorth is, it would take me about 3 minutes to walk from one end of the High Street to the other. Longer if I actually have to go into a shop and purchase something. That is the extend of the excitement we got living there, and people wonder why I (along with Julia and others) couldn't wait to leave Bridgnorth for college.

Bridgnorth High St. - North

Bridgnorth High St. – North

And it won't be a successful get together without a visit to the pub so Julia and I went to one in the evening. She had also invited her primary school friend, Dave, to join us. Dave is a marine biologist working in Manchester and is another "Get me out of here, I'm a Bridgnorth-er!" type so we all got along great!

Julia and Me

Julia and Me

Julia and Dave

Julia and Dave

After consuming the requisite among of alcohol, we decided that we will start a new tradition of all three of us meeting up in Bridgnorth every X'mas/New Year so we can play murder mystery game in the pub! We'll see if we can keep our own promises!

(Please excuse the quality of the photos. Due to a packing issue, I forgot to take the digital camera with me to Bridgnorth. So I ended up using a disposable camera and then scanned the negatives into the computer instead. How 1990's!)

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QotD: I Get Around

How many places have you lived in your life?

Country-wise, three. Born in Hong Kong, emigrated to Britain, and escaped to USA.

Location-wise, six. Born and raised in Hong Kong, finish school in Shropshire, got a degree and met eiron in Manchester, got first job in Wiltshire, escaped the countryside to London, found the place I want to work and live in New York.

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