St Peters Church

Just right before my thirtieth birthday, I made a choice that reoriented my life's trajectory. I moved to London from Sydney on a two-year working holiday visa. One of the perks of being a naturalised Australian citizen.

Why London? Partly due to some nudges from friends. One was from Lani my fellow Filipino-Aussie close friend and former flatmate who after coming back from a holiday in the UK with her Scouser husband said: "When we were in London, we thought about you. That city is so you. You should go." She also mentioned that her career mentor from South Africa once said to her: "One has not really lived until one has lived in London."

The other was Trina my best friend classmate in law school who said she had a fabulous time there. She said the best thing about London was Europe. I asked her: "What was one thing that you valued most from your time there?" She answered: "Anonymity" I did not really understand what she meant by that until after I had lived there.

Perhaps even without these nudges I still would have gone. I was feeling a bit stuck in my life at that time. I was working as a mortgage paralegal and studying law at night. It was a good job but I wanted more. I wanted to do something else other than mortgages but I kept hitting this conundrum. All the recruitment agents wanted to do was to place me in a similar role in another law firm. The only reason I wanted to leave was that I wanted to do something different. The agents kept saying but that was the experience I had they could pitch to their clients. To this day I haven't seen a satisfactory hack out of this misalignment between what the recruitment agency's client's needs and the employee candidate's wants when it comes to non-homogenous lateral moves.

There was also a practical reason that could have stopped me from going. I was in my last year of law school. I could just have stayed to finish my Juris Doctor, get a lawyer job then apply to work in London later on. But that would mean missing out on the whole working holiday thing. Something in me badly wanted to go. So I ignored the linearly practical part of me, followed the gut feeling part and went for it.

By the way, I was still able to continue and finish my Sydney law degree while being halfway around the world. All thanks to Trina. She sent me all the subject outlines, shared her notes, reminded me of deadlines. There were even a couple of times when I posted her DVDs of me doing presentations which she played in class to fulfil the subjects' requirements. This was back in 2005 – 2007 before YouTube went prime time. I was able to save one of these presentations and subsequently published it in my channel. Part one of which you can watch below.

As a matter of fact, I don't think I could have completed law school without Trina's help. She convened a study group of like-minded students who also worked fulltime. We shared the workload, the joys and frustrations of law school. We motivated each other to finish what we started. I even relied on Trina's notes a few times to ace a couple of open-book final examinations.

When I first landed in London, Theresa and her husband Hugh were very kind to let me stay with them and their lovely dog for free until I found work. I first met Theresa at the Westpac Mortgage Centre in Adelaide. The securities clerk role in that place was my first office job in Australia. Before my move, Theresa and Hugh themselves moved to Sydney first then to London. We joked that I must simply be following them around. In London, they lived near the Morden tube station, the termination point of the Northern Line to the south. I myself eventually ended up living towards the northern end of the same tube line, near Archway tube station, in a church.

When I first emigrated to Australia I first lived in Adelaide with my mother. I then moved to Melbourne, then to Sydney within the same bank doing mortgage processing. All the while thinking that perhaps if I moved cities I could find better work. Back in Adelaide my mother came upon this book "Clearing your clutter with Feng Shui". I helped her clear her clutter following the insights and advice from the book. I saw how this seemingly simple ritual of space clearing profoundly changed her life for the better. So in one of those I'm-not-happy-with-my-job moments, I thought to myself perhaps I should just quit my job and become a space clearing consultant. Towards the end of that book, the author recommended that anyone wanting to become a space clearer to first do some courses at the Clairvision School of Meditation.

So when I moved to Sydney I went to that meditation school. I went deep and stayed with the school for decades. I became friends with Karen the author of the Clearing your Clutter book who continue to attend meditation courses as well. She lived in Bali at that time but was originally from London. At the time I landed in London Karen was there to visit. We scheduled to meet at a restaurant for a catch-up. At the last minute, she messaged me that there was a change in plans, meet me at this address instead. Let's have dinner at my friend's place. I think you'll find it interesting.

Boy! I'm glad I went with the flow. That was an interesting dinner indeed. Great food. Even better conversations. I met top-notch people. Not the least Keith the owner of the place who bought the unused church and converted it to residential units. During the dinner, Keith gave me a tour of the place. He must have seen how fascinated I was with its feel and architecture. At the end of the dinner, I exchanged numbers with him. I told him if I find work I'll stay in London for the two years. If not I'll cut it short and come back to Sydney. Perhaps I can ring him if I do find work as he would know places to stay as he was in the real estate industry.

I did find work and rang Keith. Instead of recommending places, he offered me to share the church with him. So we met for the second time ever and handed me the keys to the place. He said he was going to be away. He will be in Europe for a business trip but I can move in anytime I like while he was away.

I moved in. As I first sat inside this magnificent space, by myself, I could not believe the amount of trust bestowed on me by someone who was practically a stranger to me at that time. I stayed at St Peter's Church for the rest of my time in London. Even after Keith moved out to live in his newly built house in Hampstead. I got amazing flatmates to live with me. But more about that in later stories.

For now, to end this one suffice to say after I came back from my two year stay in London I found a very rewarding work as a paralegal then as a lawyer in one of Sydney's finest corporate law firms. But more important than solving I'm-not-happy-with-my-job problem, I found myself in connection and in community with people who care and who trust. This realisation and the insights I received from my first time in London eventually led me to finish my journey as a lawyer and move into the more creative life I live now.