standing outside the american embassy after a surprisingly brief interview and finding myself in possession of spare time and a visa i crossed the road to gleneagles hospital to see if my old paediatrician was in. i have never been to her clinic here: when i saw her, 18 years ago, her clinic was in peace centre along selegie road, and until the nel replaced my buses from town, i used to shudder a little when the bus stopped outside peace centre. i had dreadful asthma as a kid and though impressions are hazy i remember shuttling in and out of hospital, and thin tubes in noses and mask inhalers and the circle of faces above before slipping out of consciousness. and i remember the physiotherapist at mount alvernia too - yasmin, her name was - who made me do all kinds of breathing exercises. i haven't thought about dr c for years - do people remember their paediatricians? the point precisely: we were too young then to. i hadn't thought of her till a few weeks ago, looking at the immunisation records in my blue health booklet, and looking at the address of the clinic printed on the slip, so when i was at the travel agent at middle road three weeks ago i walked over to peace centre to say hello. the clinic had moved (as it happens, it moved ten years ago.) i called yellowpages but the only clinic by the same name had an gleneagles address instead, and i had to wait to verify it by looking her up in the singapore medical association directory. gleneagles is out of the way for me, and it would be rather awkward: i'm sure she doesn't remember me - why should she? she's 70 years old and has been practising since 1956 and patients unlike students don't distinguish themselves. i go into the clinic and the receptionist stares at me: too old to be a patient and too young to be a mother, at least, no visible kid in tow. i sit and the clinic begins to fill with toddlers and infants and parents and grandparents and maids. i wouldn't be surprised if the entire extended family was waiting in the lobby too. none of the children would be engaged in conversation, so i left off trying and read three issues of "young parents" and several pamphlets on cod liver oil, weaning babies, and how to increase your infant's word power to shakespearean standards. the doctor sweeps in and into her office and then puts her head out again: she peers at me more closely: "are you here to see someone?" "er yes, you in fact, but i see you're busy shall i come back?." i thought she would throw me out, because there were obviously patients waiting, and even after i'd given her my name i could see she didn't quite remember me, but that didn't stop her from giving me a seat and chatting to me for a good fifteen minutes. i'm always impressed by older people who are active, and she is one active seventy-year-old. "and when i retire, i want to go back to university and get a liberal arts degree for the fun of it." i think i really should not keep her any longer, thinking of the people in the waiting room, but she tells me to come and have lunch with her in a few weeks (but not on wednesdays and fridays - she has a japanese tutor come to the clinic during lunch hours to give her lessons!!) and gets me to put down my dad's contact number in her address book for anyone she knows looking for a tutor and she comes out into the waiting room with me and tells everyone (in cantonese) "this is my former patient who came to see me!" as if it were her pleasure and not the other way round! i'm glad to have seen her again.