26th December 2022
Woodlawn, New York
Having failed miserably at keeping up this blog and then again at sending out Christmas cards, I thought I’d send my warmest greetings to you in the form of this Christmas letter of sorts.
I wish I was penning this somewhere poetic, perhaps a bench overlooking the skating rink in Central Park, or even in a bustling coffee shop in Manhattan, but I’m afraid the combination of sub-zero temperatures and the bag of Dunkin’ Donuts’ tater tots and snackin’ bacon I’ve just finished off has left me lying on the sofa in one of those glorious Boxing Day slumps.
CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK: St Patrick's Cathedral, iconic Christmas trees (Stock Exchange and Rockefeller Plaza), Wollman Rink in Central Park - which you might recognise from the final scene of that cheesy Christmas movie classic 'Serendipity'.
On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the Priest opened his homily by exclaiming, ‘What just happened?!’, and while it transpired that he was referring to the fact we hear of a son to be named ‘Emmanuel’ in the First Reading yet of the Angel telling Joseph to name him ‘Jesus’ in the Gospel [1], I found myself asking the same question: What just happened?
What was I doing in the pews of St Vincent Ferrer’s, a beautiful Dominican Parish on the Upper East Side of New York, a considerable distance from my home parish in London? Had I really just emerged out of the other end of the internship I had moved to New York to do?
Where did 2022 go?
A Christmas letter is hardly the place for profound musings or deep reflections. And it would be bold to assume I’d be capable of those - my dissertation feedback was along the lines of 'this reads like an excellent travelogue' (but not an academic piece of research). Little did the Professor know that I in fact took this as the most wonderful compliment I had received over four years of essay feedback.
And neither is a Christmas letter the place to launch into overly detailed descriptions of trips and adventures. Perhaps it's a place to share a couple of updates to give you some idea of what I've been up to this year.
My year was very much split into two: from January to July I was in Cambridge, and from July up until the snackin' bacon present, I’ve been in New York, New York.
I graduated in July with a degree in French and German, having also dabbled in Dutch and pretended I could understand my Polish classes along the way. I was immensely relieved to have finally reached the end of the late-night essay crises, hours spent on the train service between London and Cambridge as I juggled home and university life, and the academic pressure of my college, Christ’s College.
While I had chosen Christ’s based on the biscuits they had served on their Open Day (if they could look after me for a few hours, they could do it for a few years, I’d thought), it turned out to be an academic hothouse - in recent years, Christ’s has ranked highest among Cambridge Colleges. [2]
Looking back through rose-tinted glasses, I am however immensely grateful for my time spent in College, as well as in the Sidgwick Site – home to the Modern Languages’ Faculty and the most fashionable outfits in Cambridge, and of course at Fisher House, the Catholic Chaplaincy, which became a home away from home.
I was lucky to enjoy a fairly undisrupted final year, having spent the previous year hunkering down and eating Sachertorte on my Year Abroad in Vienna. My final few weeks in Cambridge were simply delightful: summer garden parties, dinners, friends visiting, and receiving and celebrating the degree which had cost a lot of blood, sweat, and tears over the past few years.
After graduation, it was a brief few weeks in London, and then off to New York, where I undertook an internship with the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations.
As an intern on the Peace and Security team, I attended Security Council and Fourth Committee meetings at the UNHQ for the Holy See, taking notes and writing reports which were sent to Rome.
It was humbling to help represent the voice of the Church on this international stage, to see how Catholic Social Teaching can shine light on world debates, and witness how the Church works to uphold the inherent dignity of each person.
Working alongside the dynamic Archbishop Caccia and an international team of interns, I was reminded of the universality, and despite what the media might say, the vitality and hope for the Church today.
INSIDER'S VIEW: Different angles of the UNHQ in New York where I spent September to December.
Highlights of the internship include High-Level Week, when Heads of State and Government descended upon New York – including Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, spending time with the wonderful bunch of interns, and amusingly, delivering a Christmas card and panettone to the Secretary-General’s office, on the 38th floor of the Secretariat building. While I enjoy my panettone over coffee at breakfast, it appears that Mr. Guterres likes his panettone scanned through an x-ray machine and officially registered by his security officer.
Also rather amusingly, I accidentally ended up being featured in an article in Catholic New York, talking about nuclear disarmament and well, Fisher House.
Outside the internship, I endeavoured to make the most of life in the Big Apple. After a stressful accommodation hunt, I finally found a room in a lovely flatshare through a Catholic Facebook group (they do more than memes) in Woodlawn.
It’s a quiet residential area in the Bronx, wedged between Van Cortlandt Park and the famous Woodlawn Cemetery, and a thirty-minute train-ride to mid-town Manhattan. I’ve greatly enjoyed being able to see the sky and have a lot more space than one tends to in the Concrete Jungle. It’s also a short subway ride down to the Upper East Side, home to both the Dominican Parish of St Vincent Ferrer, where my flatmates and I attend Mass, and of course Levain Bakery, which sells some of the finest chocolate chip cookies I have ever tasted. And believe me, I have tasted a lot.
LIFE IN THE BRONX: Snaps from walks in Van Cortlandt Park - NYC's third largest park, a short walk away from my flat.
I’ve enjoyed exploring many of the museums and art galleries New York has to offer, immersing myself fully in the obsession with all things ‘Fall’ (pumpkin-spiced and pumpkin-decorated everything), and making slightly over-ambitious weekend trips, given my tendency to continually underestimate how big America actually is.
One of the unexpected joys of living in New York has been the chance to spend time with friends I’ve known from a mixture of London, Cambridge, and Vienna, who have also found themselves on the East Coast, as well as the caboodle of state-side cousins every Filipino family inevitably has.
Just before I started my internship, I joined the cousins on a trip to Ithaca, in upstate New York, and on various weekends I visited friends in Virginia (Charlottesville and Alexandria) and Washington DC.
It’s also been great fun hosting friends and family here in New York, taking them around the UN, and doing some sightseeing together. I’ve very much enjoyed my time on the East Coast, and while I feel ready to hop back over the pond and reunite with many of you, and move on to new adventures, I’ll be sad to say goodbye to the people and places which have become so familiar over the last few months.
WEEKENDS IN VA.: University of Virginia Campus, Shenandoah National Park, Charlottesville, and Alexandria.
Before I begin the dreaded task of packing up, I have however squeezed in one last adventure, which is partly the reason this is coming from the sofa in Woodlawn, and not London. On Wednesday, I’m off to Nashville, Tennessee, where I should find around 40 European students, many of whom are close friends from my time in Vienna, who will fly in for the annual SEEK conference of the Catholic apostolate FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students).
From Nashville, we’ll then head to St. Louis, Missouri, where we’ll join around 10 000 others from all over the US for the main conference week. I’m looking forward to wrapping up my time here in the US reuniting with friends, hearing from great speakers I’ve only ever heard on YouTube or on podcasts (does Fr Mike Schmitz exist in actual reality?) and spending time in worship and prayer together.
I helped organise a hybrid SEEK conference in London in February, which was simultaneously the most chaotic, intense, dramatic, and joyful weekend of the year, so I’m very much looking forward to the real deal. Although sadly it won’t have my Mum’s steaming pots of Filipino Chicken Adobo, which I believe were instrumental to the success of SEEK last year.
SNAPS OF SVF: Parish of St Vincent Ferrer located on the Upper East Side, NYC.
So there we have it - a brief outline of ‘what just happened’ in 2022. I’ll be back in London in just three weeks now, and I’m looking forward to catching up with many of you and hearing about your adventures over the last few weeks and months.
I don’t plan on relocating again any time soon (famous last words?), and look forward to settling back into the land where tea is made in a kettle, and I am not told ‘your accent is so cute!’ or ‘you’re so British!’ every time I speak.
'Murica, I’ll miss you.
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[1] In the First Reading from Isaiah (7:10-14), we hear, ‘the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel’, yet in the Gospel of Matthew (1:18-24), the Angel appears to Joseph and tells him that Mary ‘will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus’.
[2] I live for the yearly pun in the student newspaper headlines - Tompkins Table 2022: the resurrection of Christ’s | Varsity