Most events in your life are not fantastic. Some are of that order, others we label monotonous, then there are those which can’t quite seem fit to be labeled as extraordinary, but yet, rise above the ordinary to be something you remember for at least, that day, or the few days after.

I went for my Pre-Admission Health checkup at the NUS University Health Centre today. It was a clinical-looking place, and I stumbled in slightly disoriented, looking for where to start. I found the registration counter, and opened my mouth. It was after the “Pre”, going on to the “Admission”, that the girl at the counter interrupted my speech and rather mechanically referred me to the special registration booth on the right for people like me.

I was still in a slightly disoriented (not lost) frame of mind – the kind where you are not entirely at peace or alert to your surroundings, yet not totally unaware either. The older lady at this other registration booth directed me to fill in my particulars – mechanically, again. And then the time came for the two girls by the side to get to work. I assumed they were students working/interning part time there.

This was the beginning of my series of blunders. She brought me over to the automated machine which measured my height and weight. I’m sure I heard, “Take off your shirt”, which did not register immediately because it would not be something you would expect to do right there, smack in the middle of the Health Centre with people milling around. So she repeated herself, “Take off your shirt”. I was quite game, and my shirt was not half up the front part of my torso, that she repeated herself in a clearer voice, this time: Take off your shoes. I complied. I stepped onto the machine with my pale-yellow-topped-with-a-black band ankle socks from Uniqlo (from my Japan trip) and looked down. Just how you’d expect to see the measurement flashed across some screen below. “Look up”. I complied, and realised that the measurement was being flashed at my eye level anyway. Maybe if I had consciously stood as upright as I could, I would have been able to squeeze one more centimeter to increase my height to 175cm, which would be the first increase since Junior College.

Through this series of interactions with others, I also noticed that I was unusually calm (Calm and Peace are two different things). Normally, when I am in this slight disoriented state of mind, I can get rather tense or conscious when talking to people, though I don’t think they take particular notice. So that was unexpected.

I was directed to walk down this corridor to the blood pressure table. I was still calm. A malay woman clad in her tudung welcomed me; this time slightly less mechanical than the previous few people. Now, my ringtone does elicit a response from others – it is a blaring crescendo of an orchestral tune which is actually the theme song from my favourite movie – and because it is so… unusual, I usually try not to leave it playing for too long. Anyway, the phone with its blaring orchestral music in the midst of the fiery crescendo of stringed instruments blared out as my blood pressure was being taken. I tried to silence it as quickly as I could wiggled it out of my jeans pocket. My blood pressure had to be taken twice; maybe I wasn’t relaxed enough the first time.

Like an unfinished product on the factory line, I was again directed to the X-ray cum urine test room, where I saw two others whom I knew from my Hwa Chong days. Well, I had seen their names and which faculty they ended up in on the list when I registered. I raised my eyebrows at them (is this how you describe it?) in acknowledgment. I sat down for a while. It probably took three whole minutes before I realised that it would be no use sitting there. I asked my former schoolmates (and I guess, soon-to-be schoolmates, even though I’ll probably not see them around in NUS much) whether I had to tell ‘them’ that I was there. Duh. (that’s not what they said of course) So I told ‘them’ that I was there. I was figuring out, for a moment, whether to add my name to a list of names on the clipboard at the registration table. So I asked the girl seated behind the desk, her head hunched over a pink-skinned iPhone. She apologised, and directed me to fill it in. I was given a broad plastic cup with my queue number written on it – for the urine. I was to follow the green arrow.

Hm… what green arrow. Or rather, where is the green arrow? I scanned the room, not wanting to look too lost. Ah, finally, the green arrow! I followed one green arrow, then another. I was out of the room now into the corridor. Then another green arrow – okay, so this is the part where I have to go into the toilet and produce the urine sample. Without looking around much, I entered the toilet which was just opposite the X-ray room. This was my grave mistake.

I did what I needed to do, in the cubicle. Rather gingerly. Yes, the word “gingerly” actually came to my mind then. Not a very pleasant thing huh. I was thinking how a more pleasant method should be invented for this kind of thing. Before I entered the cubicle, which was a normal sitdown type cubicle, I had opened several doors before deciding on the right one. This was more a psychological reflex action – when you have too much choice, you open all since all the cubicles were empty. In fact, the whole toilet was empty. Thank God! – as we shall soon find out why that is such a great thing. Now that I think of it, I realise that another reason for my psychological reflex action was probably a result of realising, subconsciously, that there were no urinals in the toilet, hence checking each cubicle to see if they were all the same. Maybe, and probably, I was looking for those hole-in-the-ground kind of cubicle – since a normal male toilet would probably have that if there were no urinals present (Hm, I wonder). Whatever it is, there was a sign pasted above the flush button asking me to place the sample at the small window outside the toilet for it to be analysed.

I washed my hands, with soap. Then realised that it might soon get dirty again since I would have to hold on to the cup. I exited the toilet and took my time in placing it at the window. Hm, maybe I should put it slightly further in to make sure she will notice. Hm, shouldn’t linger here for too long. I decided to return to the toilet which I came from to wash my hands. So I took the few steps back to this toilet. And in the split-second as I stood outside the toilet about to push the door to enter, I saw the Realisation. She stared at me in all her demure, pointed-edged, skirted beauty. The universal female toilet symbol.

So I had been in the female toilet all along. The first reactions had probably been shock, then being aghast at what had happened, then very thankful that noone had seen me, and fearful also, at the kind of misunderstanding which might have happened had there been someone else in the toilet, or maybe if that blood pressure woman in the tudung, seated not too far away, had seen me emerge from the forbidden land.

Shaken, I went to the correct toilet to wash my hands, and returned to the room. I had my chest X-ray taken, and was directed back to the main waiting area where I had had my height and weight taken before. I am getting a bit tired of telling this story now, and you may be getting tired of listening to me, so I will move along.

My number was called and I saw the doctor. He was the least mechanical, and most hospitable, of all the staff in the Health Centre. While waiting, I had also realised how this place did not feel different from the medical centres in the SAF. It was more professional, and the staff were more competent – though still mechanical, but it did not feel too different. And so, going to see the doctor was like going to see a Medical Officer in the SAF, an officer whom you are not afraid of/anything close to it, but nevertheless still a Captain. An officer who would not exchange too many words with you; where you are treated like something of a cross between a patient, and one of his men. I was wrong.

This doctor was friendly and approachable – not put on, but genuine. He shook my hand. My tenseness had come back, but the conversation gradually put me at ease. Why was I PES B? The same old sensitive nose story. He enquired about a particular issue which I had indicated (or was it just in the system) in the form, which I told him had been resolved a long time ago – spiritually. I am a Christian, I said. He asked which church I attended. I told him. He sounded like a Christian too. I lay on the medical bed as he examined my breathing. I went back to the chair and sat back this time, more relaxed. Was I from SAJC? Since I had said that my church is located in St Andrews Village. No, I was not. I’m from Hwa Chong. Maybe he was from SAJC. He asked about Hwa Chong and I told him about my ministry involvement. He was quite interested in this. Was I going to join any of the Christian groups in university? VCF? Navigators? I had not thought of it yet, but I guess probably. Maybe VCF, I said. He talked about young people. I’m not sure if I got it right, but I think he was saying how young people are not being educated right, and something about society. I guess it’s about how they are not taught by the system to think well, they are just very influenced by the society. I agreed. “A lot of young people need help”, I said. I think he shook my hand again.

I thanked him – once when sitting down, another time after I asked him which church he attended, while standing up. “I’m Catholic”, he said. Now that I think of it. He’s probably been asked this question by many Protestant Christians. Maybe the thinking goes that if you are asked which church you attend by a Protestant Christian, it would not really matter much to the Protestant the moment you say you’re Catholic. Maybe.

I would have loved to say more. But I had not expected conversation. And I had already said more, and eased out of my tenseness after this doctor engaged me. This is still an issue I struggle with. Maybe it stems from my self-consciousness. I often talk to people as much as what I think their social role can/should accommodate. I have never initiated anything beyond a very superficial conversation with a taxi driver, for example. And I remember how I felt so uneasy one time, a few years ago, after a Model UN, when someone I shared a cab with began telling the taxi driver about some of the people we met during the conference. It’s not that I look down on people. This kind of principle also applied (initially) to the doctor this time. And I guess it is not so much thinking of some people as incapable of more intelligent conversation (though there may be an element of this) than of now wanting to engage in anything personal beyond what is necessary – medical details, for example.

I think it requires courage, especially for us Singaporeans, to look at people as individuals, beyond the role and capacity in which we are interacting with them in. The taxi driver, the cleaner, the waiter, the doctor, the dentist – to see them as individuals beyond what they are doing for you as part of their job. It requires courage because it puts the onus on us to treat them as we would our friends. Because we Singaporeans often dehumanise those outside the ‘family’ – family referring to those whom we have close enough personal relationships with.

Through typing this entry, I realise that a crucial part of authentic Christian living involves looking at each individual we interact with, as being uniquely and equally created in the image of God. Help me, Father.