We were back in school for our final block study. On the way to the classroom, I slowed down as I passed the auditorium. I paused at the doorway, leaning just far enough to take in the familiar rows of seats and the stage.
The place looked exactly the same same pale walls, same polished floor, same faint echo when someone moved inside. But I wasn’t the same.I could still see her my nineteen-year-old self sitting stiffly in the front row on that very first day, 1 March 1980, wrapped in my baju kurung and tudung, the only one in the intake with a headscarf.
Nineteen, the youngest in the cohort, surrounded by women who already seemed to have lived whole lives before coming here: ex-air stewardess, ex-prison warden, ex-receptionist, ex-legal assistant. They spoke with that easy confidence of people who knew where they’d been and where they were headed.
Me? My great “work experience” was three months as a production operator at the Rollei Factory in Chai Chee and I’d only taken that job because it was walking distance from my flat. No transport costs, no long commute, no real plan beyond the next pay packet.
It paid just enough to cover my night-class fees, a little for my pocket, and most importantly it meant I didn’t have to keep asking my parents for money. I could source it on my own, stand on my own feet, even if it was just by a few dollars at a time.
Then one afternoon, during our break, one of the Singapore Polytechnic interns a Chinese guy looked me straight in the eye and said, “With your academic qualifications, you shouldn’t be here. You should be in an office clerk, receptionist somewhere you’ll get better pay"
It was such a simple thing to say. But the words lodged themselves somewhere deep, the way small stones settle into the grooves of a stream bed. Within a month, I had handed in my resignation. I even registered at the Teachers’ Training College. And yet, somehow, my road bent in another direction, bringing me right back to this auditorium.
Only this time, I walked in knowing I belonged. I didn’t know it then, but that was the first nudge that would set me on the path that eventually led… right back to this doorway. I resigned a month later.
I smiled to myself. That winding road, all the little accidents and detours, had led me to this very moment. Back then, those first few days in the School of Nursing were painfully awkward. I was slow to find my footing in new places, and I had a bad habit of measuring myself against everyone else always to my own disadvantage.
My classmates spoke easily, laughed without hesitation, while I held my tongue, afraid that the wrong word would expose me as foolish or unprepared.And our tutor, Ms. Angelina Yip, did nothing to soften the landing.
Small in stature, fierce in presence, with a sharp gaze that could slice through a careless answer, she was one of the first local nurses trained by the British. Discipline was in her bones.
I remember sitting ramrod straight in my seat, pen poised, heart thudding whenever she called for a volunteer. I dreaded her questions as much as I dreaded failing them.Now, standing at the door of the auditorium years later, I realised I’d survived her. And in surviving her, I’d grown.
She walked with the quiet authority of someone who knew exactly who she was — back straight, chin lifted, steps measured, as if every movement had been drilled into perfection. She was a Catholic possibly one of the nursing nuns who had traded the convent habit for the crisp white uniform.
Everything about her suggested discipline: the neat coil of her hair, the immaculate starch of her cap, the way her watch chain lay precisely across her chest. Her sharp gaze could slice a careless answer in two, and when she called your name, it felt like being summoned before a tribunal.
I hardly ever saw her smile and when she did, it was small and fleeting, like a rare blessing. You can still see her name: Angelina Yip, engraved on the plaque at the entrance of the School of Nursing’s administrative office, alongside the other recipients of the Outstanding Performance Award.
She had been among the very first batches of local nurses trained by the British. And it showed. Everything about her carried that crisp, militaristic edge: precise, disciplined, no-nonsense. She walked as if the corridor belonged to her, each step measured and certain.
Her uniform was immaculate not a wrinkle in sight and her nurse’s cap sat at the perfect angle, anchored by hair so neatly coiled it seemed sculpted. She never needed to raise her voice her authority lived in her posture, in the way silence fell when she entered a room. In my first year, I was terrified of her.
She had a sharp gaze that could stop you mid-sentence and a habit of letting silence stretch just long enough for you to second-guess your answer. But what stayed with me most was her way of teaching.
During practical nursing sessions, she had three favourite questions: “Why?” … “Is that so?” … “How is it?” Back then, those words sounded like interrogation :blunt, almost intimidating. But now I see them differently. They weren’t meant to break you they were meant to push you.
To make you dig deeper, to reach beyond memorised answers and into the part of yourself that was curious about how the world worked and why.
It was her way of training us not just to do, but to think. And that, I realise now, is the skill that has stayed with me the longest. And then there was the lesson that never left me — the one she called “Before you can nurse a patient, you must be the patient.”
One morning, she lined us up in the ward, told us to remove our caps, and assigned us roles: half the class as “nurses,” the other half as “patients.” I thought it was going to be a role-play game. It wasn’t.
I lay in a hospital bed while my classmates played nurse. They slid their arms under my shoulders to transfer me to the trolley and for the first time, I felt that strange weightless fear, the moment your body is no longer in your control.
The anxiety that they might drop you. The quick, helpless scan of their faces to guess if they know what they’re doing. It was unsettling, being at the mercy of someone else’s hands.That was the point.Ms. Yip stood at the foot of the bed, arms folded, watching. “Never forget this feeling,” she said. “Every patient who comes into your care feels it. And if you forget, you will fail as a nurse.”
It wasn’t the kind of lesson you could copy from a textbook. She made you live it, so that you’d carry it in your bones.The six guys were still around too. I’d half-expected at least one of them to drop out before the second-year block study, but no all six had made it, still sitting together at the back of the classroom like a small, stubborn island in a sea of white-uniformed girls.
And they weren’t anything like the “male nurse” stereotype some outsiders liked to joke about. Far from being sissy, two were ex-medics fresh out of national service the sort who could start an IV with one hand while calming a panicking patient with the other.
Another had worked in a factory and could lift a patient with the ease of shifting a rice sack. One was so good with the elderly that even the most cantankerous grandpa patients would soften when he came near.
They were steady, capable, and to our relief endlessly helpful. Need someone to help turn a heavy patient? They’d be there before you finished asking. Need a trolley moved? They’d manoeuvre it through the tightest corridor without knocking a single IV stand.
Need to reach something on the top shelf of the supply cupboard? Forget the step stool just call one of them.They were also a buffer in class when Ms. Yip’s questions got too sharp, they’d sometimes volunteer an answer just to take the heat off the rest of us.
Not always the right answer, mind you, but enough to make her shift her gaze away for a moment, giving the rest of us time to breathe.I’d wanted to stay in the hostel this block, but by the time I finally put in my application, every single room had been taken.
I let it go and made other plans moving in with my ex-roommate instead. Her current roommate, an Indian girl named Tamilselvi, was hardly ever around, so I naturally drifted into her space and eventually took over the bed.
Block study time was different from ward postings quieter in some ways, but just as intense. The days blurred into lectures, thick textbooks, and evenings filled with revision for the weekly class tests. It was a rhythm that was exhausting, but it felt purposeful.
Nevertheless, we still found time to gallivant around. One of the registered nurses in Toa Payoh once told me, “Your student days are the best. Enjoy them, because once you graduate and get posted to different hospitals, you’ll have no time for anything else.
Other commitments will take over.”We took her advice seriously. Our favourite haunts were Outram Park and Queensway Shopping Centre. Occasionally, we’d take a short trip to the Botanic Gardens — not to admire the orchids or the manicured lawns, mind you, but for the hawker centre nearby.
That place was a feast. They had the best cheng tng, smoky satay fresh off the grill, and, my personal weakness Roti John. For the uninitiated, Roti John is basically an omelette sandwich. Minced mutton, chopped onions, and beaten eggs are mixed together, then spread generously over a halved baguette.
The whole thing is pressed down on a sizzling skillet until the bread soaks up the flavour and turns golden brown. Finally, it’s sliced into pieces and served with tomato sauce. Simple, but heavenly. Back in the day, locals used to call foreigners especially the fair-haired ones “John.” And apparently, there was once a Mr. John who adored this dish so much, it ended up being named after him. Roti John: the roti that Mr. John loved. Every block study, there was always someone’s birthday to celebrate.
During our Preliminary Training School (PTS) the three-month basic training the class threw me a surprise birthday party. In our first-year study block, it was Junita’s turn. And this time, it was for Narindarjeet Kaur.
We decided to do it the same way everyone chipped in, and Junita was assigned to buy the cake. She came back with an enormous one twenty kilograms worth of cream and sponge. At tea time (10:00 hrs), Junita found me.
“Trouble! Trouble!” she whispered urgently.
“What happened?”
“She saw me carrying the cake this morning!”
Within minutes, Tamilselvi, Maria, Jamilah, and a few others gathered in the corridor like it was a crisis meeting.
“She knows we’re planning something for her,” I said. “Now what?”
Right then, my roommate walked past. She stopped when she saw our serious faces.
“What’s going on?” We explained.“Hmm,” she said, folding her arms like a general surveying the battlefield. “How can we still turn this into a surprise?”
“Ya-lah! How are we going to do that?” we all asked at once. She thought for a moment.
“Okay. What time is the party?”
“Thirteen-thirty,” Jamilah answered.
“Right. Here’s the plan: everyone meet in the classroom at 13:10. At exactly 13:00, send everyone out. No one stays. Maria you distract her, keep her away from here until one of us gives you the signal. Junita you bring in the cake at the same time.”
She grinned. “Don’t worry. We’ll make her think she knows and then we’ll still catch her off guard.”
“Now what can we do a surprise that’s not a surprise, and turn it into another surprise… hmmmmm,” she muttered to herself as she strolled toward the lecture hall for our next subject before lunch: Surgical Nursing.
I followed to her instructions. At 13:00 sharp, Cheng Mun and I cleared the classroom like drill sergeants. “Out, out, out come back at 13:30 for Narindarjeet’s so-called surprise birthday party,” we told everyone.
Then we wandered down to the grocery store next to the nurses’ hostel to grab a snack. When I came back at 13:10, the classroom door was shut. Inside, I could hear movement shuffling, a chair scraping, something being dragged.
I knew the two of them were in there. I was tempted to peek in, but stopped myself. Better to let them surprise me too.Down at the canteen, Narindarjeet was happily buying something, smiling like she’d just won a prize. She waved at us when she saw me — the kind of wave that said, I know what you’re up to.
I took my position outside the classroom door, the self-appointed guard. Slowly, the others trickled back to join me. Even the guys showed up when they heard about the party proof that free cake has the strongest pull in nursing school.
“Wouldn’t want to miss the whole thing,” Arul grinned at me. “Who doesn’t want free cake especially from Narindajeet Kaur’s birthday!”
The corridor erupted in laughter.“I’ve got the camera and the lighter,” Rosli puffed as he came rushing in. “Someone told me to bring them. Have I missed anything yet?”
Rosli was our unofficial official photographer every block party and celebration had his fingerprints (and film) on it.
“Nope, not yet,” I told him. “Those two are still in there… doing something.”At exactly 13:20, the door opened. Both of them emerged, Junita looking smug.
“Okay, everyone come in,” she said. The cake box sat neatly in the middle of the teacher’s table. Everything else looked perfectly ordinary.
“So… what exactly were you two up to in there?” Gopal asked suspiciously. “I heard a lot of moving around.” Junita only smiled that slow, satisfied smile of someone sitting on a secret.
“Just watch. And whoever’s got the camera make sure you focus on her face when we open the box. Don’t miss it.”
Narindajeet walked in five minutes later, flanked by a few girls. She did her best ‘surprised birthday girl’ act.
“Ooooo, such a surprise! You all shouldn’t have… boo-hoo-hoo…” she fake-sobbed.
“Alright, everybody ready?” Junita called.
“Arul, you do the honours.” Arul stepped forward and gently lifted the lid.
The room exploded with laughter.
Narindajeet screamed.
Rosli clicked furiously, capturing every expression the wide eyes, the slack jaw, the half-horrified, half-laughing disbelief.
“Where’s my cake? Where’s my cake?” she shrieked.
“Oh, this is your cake,” Arul teased, gesturing to the lone muffin in the centre of the enormous cake box complete with a single, tiny candle.
“I’m not eating that muffin.”
“Oh, you will,” the crowd chanted back.
Junita leaned in, “What you saw this morning was me carrying a cake box not a cake. This is your cake.”
“Arghhhhh!” she screamed again, but by then the birthday song was in full swing.
They lit the candle, she blew it out, and with much persuasion ate every crumb of the muffin as we all watched.
Only when she swallowed the final bite did Junita vanish, then reappear carrying a magnificent 20kg chocolate cake blazing with candles.
Narindajeet screamed again. “That’s my real cake! That’s my cake!”
