the hospital where i'm working at has finally decided to send me for the 'orientation program' where everything from work policies to union rights and nursing procedures are being taught for an entire month. and the irritating thing? all this is only happening 5 months after i've started work. their reason for the 5 month delay? the incoming nursing students only graduate in January. and having been through the orientation program once (that was long before i entered the previous organization of green camo prints and bad memories), there's nothing really left to orientate about. other than to guess the sexual orientation of the other male nurses in the program. not that there are any. sian.

but still, it sucks to be stuck in the office hours schedule of 8-4.30pm. you get caught in the middle of rush hour. you can't have free and easy access to quiet early morning gyms. the trains are so quiet that you can't fart without sounding like an atomic bomb. you start to sweat easily in the early morning sun. cigarettes just don't taste that good at 7.45am. i have no appetite for breakfast at 6am. and the worst sin that i have committed so far, i have become like the rest of the white-collared working class, queuing for free TODAY newspapers whenever they are available.

i've been very anti-Today ever since it was launched. they are all aimed at the office-cubical crowd. meaning that most of the news inside almost always has the words equity funds, investment banking, boutique banks, NASDAQ, stock exchange, etc. things you would expect to find in an issue of Forbes (i sound like Jeopardy, don't i?), and i so hate Forbes (other than the lifestyle section). i've had a stocky gay friend involved in the stocks-and-shares (i don't know the exact term) industry try to explain all that stuff about stocks and shares to me once. but the only thing that piqued my attention was the story of how he managed to hook up with another hunky gay trader at the stock market with the indiscreet use of phallic symbols as trading hand signals. the two stocky men had their fun exchanging bodily fluids with each other after work. so much for 'stock exchange'.

but back to the endless lectures about work policies. i have fallen asleep one time too many during these lectures. the theaters where these lectures are held have cramped and stiff wooden benches. it's cosy if you enjoy those wooden pews they have at the older churches. in fact, sitting through the lectures has the same lulling effect as listening to a sermon on sunday. and given that my current working schedule is the standard 8-4.30 mondays to fridays plus half-day weekends, it means that i have to go to church on sundays for the next month! i'm definitely not looking forward to that. i'll be preached by all the superiors in my life from monday to sunday.

still the only fun i derive from all this going to work with the rush hour crowd is the fact that i need not put on boring office wear to work. you can only look so glam in a slim-fit shirt and flat-front pants. i have the uniform, true. but i always head to the staff toilet and change into it once i reach the hospital. this is to avoid having to give up seats to young children and fat women disguised as pregnant ones. thus to commemorate my first day of being part of the working class, i donned the above t-shirt. i bought that in thailand. though i think i received plenty of murderous stares and imaginary poison needles all aimed at my back.

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