jon's blog

i could go on for 40 days and 40 nights about my blog title and bore you to bits and pieces with 10,000 different ideas i actually had for the name of this blog but because of the 500 characters limit that is imposed upon this mechanism which, by the way, is supposed to promote free speech, i shall shorten it to just two words basically describing what the hell this is all about and who this hell belongs to.
Thursday, March 29, 2007

project 355: the hero who is a himbo

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evolution is an often destructive and degenerative process. and i think it's getting to me. it's turning me into a useless HERO. a himbo, to be exact. here's a conversation i had while having coffee with Sunanthar today:

Me: Come, i'm quite intelligent! Test my General Knowledge! Ask me any question!

Sun: Okay. Tell me, what are the 4 'C's of the Diamond?

Me: (stumped)... ehrm...

Sun: Oi! 4 'C's of the Diamond leh! You gay leh! You don't know meh?

Me: I think it's somewhere in the Africas. Probably the Caspian right?

Sun: !



and in case you didn't know. The 4 'C's are cut, carat, clarity and color. i guessed carat, clarity, calories, carbohydrates.


Wednesday, March 28, 2007

project 355: jiak pau, pau si

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the chinese are big fans of superstitions. it's almost like they go all the way out to find small little minute details that can make or break matters of life and death. things like not washing your hair after pregnancy, to not using knives or scissors during the first day of the lunar new year (it may literally 'cut off' your fortune). which makes me wonder, are the chinese such simple-minded folk who not only smell bad post-partum but also prefer food that do not require any slicing or dicing during new year's day? or are they just willing to believe that they can at least do something, albeit silly and impractical, to divert the course of fate?

singapore being made up of a majority of chinese is of course riddled with a seemingly never-ending number of superstitions. and nursing is one profession that is not spared from the bane of mythical beliefs. afterall, the health-care industry deals with people's lives. and the only thing we chinese nurses want from our patients is for them to be safe and alive at the end of our shifts. and one method of guaranteeing that would be to avoid eating pau at the beginning of your shift.

pau being chinese steamed buns, possibly filled with pork, chicken, egg, kaya, red bean paste, chocolate, pandan, etc. pau also means 'to wrap' in hokkien. and the only things we wrap in the ward (i'm thinking of a lame joke along the rap lines of 50 cents, Snoop Dogg and Chamillionaire) would be patients who pass away during our shift. we wrap them in body bags after having wiped up the body nice and clean. all this done with due respect and dignity.

it's not so much about the death and dying bit that scares me. but the shitload of paperwork and administration to be done when someone dies. finding the right person to issue the death certificate. is it a coroner's or non-coroner's case? do i need to get the doctor to remove the pacemaker embedded in the patient? how do i go about breaking the news to the patient's relatives? what do i do when i have a bawling relative on my hands? what if they get violent? when somebody dies in a hospital setting, it sets off a chain of events that end up with the nurse getting off work at least an hour late. thus, i normally equate the consumption of pau during my shift with going home late. and nobody wants to go home late after a stressful day in the hospital.

which is why i avoid pau most of the time. but recently, i've been getting all smart-assed and complacent with my patients. i know them like the back of my hand and i have faith that they won't die on me or any of my shifts. in fact, i haven't had any patient dying on me throughout my entire nursing career yet. thus for three days in a row, i tried to test fate and my boundaries of luck, to see whether i would be immune to superstitions. true enough, everyone survived and i passed my reports over to the next shift without any problems.

but i guess fate would have never let me off so easily for tempting her.
i was caught red-handed by my supervisor, trying to leave work 45 minutes earlier than the stipulated timing.

you see, the morning shift lasts from 0700 - 1515 hours, while the afternoon, 1300 - 2130 hours. so there would be this overlapping of shifts between 1300 and 1515 hours. the norm would be to pass the morning reports over to the afternoon shifts at 1330 and then finish up other miscellaneous things that haven't been done. we can basically go rest in the staff room once we're free of work. frankly speaking, there’s nothing much left to do other than to amble around the hospital, have some lunch, a quick smoke, or if you’ve got a friend with benefits, a quickie. You could do that, or you could just go back into the ward to work. but there's no point because the afternoon shift is self-sufficient enough, to keep things running without the morning staff over-crowding the nursing-students-infested ward. since i'm not needed, i just leave. and you know lah, nobody sees you when you come in half an hour earlier for work. but everybody notices when you leave half an hour earlier from work.

as fate would have it, the supervisor was looking for me regarding some unsettled issues. and she found me in the staff toilet. end result? i had to compose a flowery memo stating what happened and they threw in a free 'counseling' session. i felt bad about it. not because it would affect my work performance grading or anything like that. i can't be bothered with those. afterall, i'm not going to stay with this organization for any time longer than my bond.

i felt horrid because i've let my supervisor down. i respect her deeply. and she respects me as a model worker. i know my work and i do it well. problem is, if i see no point in doing something, i won't do it. and clocking time till the end of shift when there's nothing left to do just doesn't go well with me. the most painful thing she said? 'now my respect for you has dropped somewhat and i think you're going to have to work very hard to get it back up'. i've been agonizing over it the whole day.

and i swear i'm not bluffing about this. but the father just came home from work and guess what he bought for breakfast tomorrow?

yeap. pau.

fate is such a fucking asshole.


Monday, March 26, 2007

project 355: 7.25 - 8.00

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on days when he's not working the morning shift, his circadian rhythm disrupts itself at 7.25 every morning. it's that kind of Murphy's Law situation whereby you set your alarm to go off at 7.30 and you wake up 5 minutes before the designated time. i think he's lucky though. i know of other people who set 3 alarms clocks to go off at 3 minutes intervals. 9 minutes later and a horrendous rendition of the Hallelujah chorus interpreted by a choir of alarm clocks, they are still lying in bed, blissfully unaware of all the bad attempts at harmonization. still, it's pretty cool to beat an alarm clock at a game of punctuality.

between 7.25 to 7.40, he is wide awake and pretending to sleep. sometimes in order to prevent himself from getting lulled back to dreamland, he thinks dirty fantasies to keep awake. you see, if he were to wake up and start his day at 7.25, his parents would launch into their usual barrage of questions about what he's going to be doing today and the breakfast that's available in the fridge. apparently, the family that God has designated him to, are just not that great at making good conversation. and even if they do, topics mainly revolve around information the parents need to keep the family going. on bad days when conversations are running dry, his parents talk about everything and anything on the dining table. they have had one too many awkward discussions about pancakes, muffins, bagels and chee cheong fun.

it's even worse, however, when there happens to be any article in the newspapers remotely related to homosexuality. his parents have this bad habit of 'accidentally' leaving the incriminating page wide open on the dining table, a not-so-subtle hint of wanting their son to realize the errors of his crooked way. the only error i see here would be that the son never reads the papers, preferring CNN.com or any other online sources of information. plus, the papers are always filled with the morning's breakfast leftovers. pieces of crumbs, a strand of noodle, grains of rice, etc. he even found nasal snot once.

all is at peace when the parents depart for work at 7.40. the offending newspaper article is spread wide-open, the way a porn star spreads his ass for a pornographic photo-shoot. he is more concerned about rushing to the neighborhood gym before it gets too crowded with heartlanders. he never liked the gym to be filled with irritating men who hog the Smith Machine for an entire forty-five minutes. healways told anyone who bothered to listen: 'like how many different variations of bench presses and lifts can you do on the Smith Machine? bah! an excuse to just lie on the bench and slack!' by 8.00, he would cut the slack and be out of the house.

some people brush their teeth first thing in the morning. some kiss their wives. he did neither. at 8.00, he would be smoking his first stick of the day. early in the morning without the concealer and coffee, he sits at the stairs outside of his house, letting the nicotine cloud his head for a few measly seconds. on a whim, he takes a picture of himself with his camera phone. i wish i could remind him to avoid all forms of photography at least an hour after sleep.

he never did look good in broad daylight.


Sunday, March 25, 2007

sexual hiatus

jonathan hasn't been blogging for the past few days because he needs to have sex with his boyfriend. there's still a few traces of African atoms leftover on the boyfriend's body that needs cleaning. but he promises to blog a few posts, if not at least something once he is able to tomorrow. meanwhile, there's always fridae.


Friday, March 23, 2007

project 355: thought of the day

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i was having coffee with Aida, Nicholas and the boyfriend at coffee bean the other day. we happened to talk about cake and blueberry. and then i had the most random of thoughts popping into my head:

if i'm eating a blackcurrant in the present, then what do i call a blackcurrant when i was eating it in the past or will be eating it in the future?

cheem hor?


Wednesday, March 21, 2007

project 355: brick



i think most people of my age grew up together with a bit of Ben Fold's Five on their radio. they've always had great keyboard sequences in most of their songs. and their songs were always very witty, punny or just singing about nonsense in general. Brick then, was one of those songs that i never understood until years later when i found out it was more about abortion rather than a break-up. as to why it's called Brick, i prolly need a few more years before i have the enlightened mind to know why.


Tuesday, March 20, 2007

project 355: !bile and more !rony!

whenever someone mentions something remotely related to Africa, my tongue will instinctively do a click. for this habitual behavior, i have only one person to blame: Russell Peters and his goddamn stand-up performance that has been downloaded one time too many from the internet. i was first introduced to the world of Peters during my 13 month stint in Brunei. everyone who arrives in Brunei with a laptop, comes accompanied with a hard-disc drive crammed full of weird mpgs and porn downloaded via bittorrent, limewire, etc. soon enough, it became an unritten rule that newbies from Singapore had to share their downloaded goods with everyone in camp. a brand new HDD would soon turn into an overused prostitute, sometimes infected with viruses amassed from plugging its plug into all the laptop's plugs in my Bruneian workplace.

Russell Peters, i must say, was one of those viruses. why? because everyone at my workplace had watched Peter's performance at least twice and memorized most of the witty one-liners. EVERY SINGLE COLLEAGUE understood and used the 'what the fuck' hand symbol on an hourly basis. it soon became part and parcel of our 'orientation program' to introduce every newbie at work to Russell Peters. most of our communication revolved around Peters and his jokes. i mean, it's frustrating and culture-shocking when your ah beng colleague, fresh from Singapore doesn't understand punani is a substitute for his much favored word AKA chee bye.

in case you haven't watch Peters, the tongue click is one of his jokes in the performance. the Africans' have names with exclamation marks before it and that ! in the name is supposed to be a click of the tongue rather than something said. i bet nobody knew that. take one great geographic example we all in Singapore learnt during the lower secondary days: !kung bushmen. i bet every single geography teacher pronounced it as the E-KUNG bushmen. little did we know it came together with a tongue click! very quaint hor!

so you see, you can't really blame me when my tongue gets all excited and clickety-click from the past few days' events - which is basically all things Aaah-Friii-Kaaaan (click click clock). in fact, three things related to Africa (!) happened to me recently. and just like the irony of pink C-in2 underwear at my neighborhood gym toilet just after i wrote a post about gay men and underwear on Fridae, here's a triple foreplay of ironic events associated with Africa in chronological order:


1) Johannesburg
the boyfriend is now in Johannesburg, having departed early this morning. the latest sms from him went like this:

'Oh my god. There r so many Akon lookalike hiphop-sters here.. Anyways (mushy items censored at the discretion of the writer)'

both of us have something against Akon. you do realize the only bit he has in Gwen Stefani's Sweet Escape is mainly 'Weee Oooh, Yeeee Oooh' and four lines of 'I wanna get away, to our sweet escape'. 'Smack That' is an official mat anthem. And if you thought Simon Webbe's nasal voice gives you an allergic runny nose, 'Lonely' featuring Akon's even more nasal voice will present you with a botched rhinoplasty. still, the boyfriend will be in Johannesburg till Friday morning. i (mushy item) you!

2) My first ever African blog visit

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as you can see from the clustrmap above, i have my very first African hit on my blog. for months, the entire continent has been devoid of hits. ever since Fridae, i've had my one and only. yeah maaahn.

3) My very first African hoax mail

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the threat of the African hoax mail has been rampant for years to come. many have been cheated and duped into sending over legal fees, only to be swindled weeks later. just when i'm beginning to think that i would never receive one of them African mails, it popped into my email account after the clustrmap update. i'm thinking of calling the guy up, but i think i might just embarrass myself trying to pronounce the 'Mfana' in 'Mr. Tutu Mfana'.


once again, God is one funny chap with a weird sense of humor. anyways, i dunno any other way to end this post. so when i've got nothing to say, i always end it with a scandalizing secret: i've always wanted to have sex with an African. it's prolly smething about their accents and the fact that they have weiners the size of.... ehrm... well, it's prolly as long as !!!!!!!!!!. and watching The Last King Of Scotland seems to just reinforce that entire love for all thing Afrikan. back then we had Papa Joe's at Orchard Emerald for the meenas. now, we don't even have any place resembling a tavern for African sailors to meet up with the locals.

!


Monday, March 19, 2007

project 355: automation

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don't you just hate automated taps? apparently, my hospital is so full of them. something about sterility and preventing the spread of infectious diseases. sometimes all you have to do is just pass by the sink and the tap will have water gushing out by itself. maybe it's the work of the many who have died at this hospital. maybe it's just screwed-up electronics. either way, i still dislike them.

washing your hands is all fine and dandy as the sensors are somehow trained to detect hands. but when i finish a smoke at my secret hideout in the hospital, the last thing i need is plenty of water sources, but no working ones! it's murphy's law that when i need to rinse my mouth, the tap's sensor just doesn't work. apparently, putting your entire head in the way of the sensor just doesn't make water come out of them bloody taps. ok lah. one time it did come out. i was drenched plus the shock of the water made me hit my head against the sink. i came back from my smoke break looking like i was robbed while smoking in the sewage.

just as a side note, you could relate this whole experience on automation to self-flushing sanitary systems in them toilet cubicals and why they always flush when you are trying to cruise for sex.



oh, the irony!

i hate trying new things. and this stems from the fact that most of the time, there's always an adjustment phase, a brave facade and plenty of boo-hoo going on in the background. it's sickening enough to have to go through it once, but imagine trying new things all the time and getting put through the roller-coaster ride over and over again? so it was with some apprehension and optimism, that i attempted writing at Fridae. in case you haven't read the post yet, i wrote about the topic of gay men and their undergarments in my same rambling prose that i use in this blog.

the barrage of comments came back thick and furious, somewhat like those arrows raining down on the Spartan men in 300. except that i went to war without my shield composed entirely of thick-skin and ego. most of the feedback were rather critical. at least some were constructive. while others were from the scorned, lying in wait for the first sign of an Achilles heel to appear.

obviously i felt like crap. in fact, i spent most of today wallowing in misery. most people pig out on food when they feel like shit. others smoke an entire pack of cigarettes. and there are those few gym rats who lift iron till their at risk of an aneurysm. the over-achiever in me decided to do all of the above. i had to admit that i feel so much better now.

and on a side note, god is obviously one dude with a great sense of humour.

at the gym where i frequent, it's seldom that i get to see gay teenagers working out. most of them are the uncle and aunties of the yesteryears. a few regular gay people here and there. but mostly the heartlanders. today was seemingly outstanding though. there was not just one, but 4 of them cheena-teens in their New Urban Male best. they were the tall, lanky types, verging on the brink of being malnourished. have you seen stick men lifting weights? yeap. today was quite the revelation.

anyways, i was entering the gym toilet to change out of my gym attire when i caught a glimpse of pink amidst the dowdy cubical colors of aquamarine and grey. one of the cheena-teens was wearing hot pink boxer briefs. with tactful glances, i got glimpses of the assortment of colorful underpants that the other three guys had on. all of various striking shades of the rainbow. i a bit lau kiu in the toilet because i couldn't be bothered to dress up today and ended up with my conservative white boxer briefs from Topman that was seriosuly overwashed and very much on the crumpled side.

as much as i wish that these boys got somewhat inspired by my post on Fridae and decided to go the extra mile with the undergarments today, i really didn't think it was true.

but yeah, irony irony.


Sunday, March 18, 2007

project 355: bringing in the munny


i can apparently die now because i've completed my list of things i've wanted to do before i go on to the flamey gates of hell. as you can see from the list on the left, one of them is to write for a gay publication and actually get some ka-ching cha-ching from it. so if you ever get bored of masturbating to my rants at this blog, please go over to Fridae and show some support to the people who show some interest in my work and are willing to support my hedonistic lifestyle for it.

click here!

more to come. thanks for reading people.


Wednesday, March 14, 2007

project 355: the nursing report

it is almost a pre-requisite for a doctor to have bad hand-writing. most nurses who are newly ingrained into the health-care system spend half their time trying to decipher the curves and dots of a doctor's penmanship. when i just started out being a registered nurse, i remember pondering why a doctor wanted to give a male patient the 'breast' treatment available in radiation oncology in a referral letter. that garnered a few laughs, until you realize that it wasted a lot of precious nursing-care minutes that you could put to much better use like giving the best possible care to your patients.

the nursing reports are one of those things that nurses do everyday. depending on the number of patients you have, your report could be as short as the brother's (as pictured; though i think he was just randomly taking notes) or be like mine (as pictured much further below). i'm actually very proud of the system that i've come up to take my notes. not that it's an original one. but it's what we're sorta taught in nursing school plus a few of my own ideas to git. it's elegant, simple and stylish. and most importantly it's to the point, with plenty of blank spaces to add in personal notes like 'he's hot!' (medical terms: he has a fever) or 'he's such a sweet guy!' (medical terms: he has diabetes) or 'he has such a big dick' (medical terms: he has such a big dick).

of course, some of the nurses pass horrible reports, especially the china female ones who's accents are as thick as 3 years' worth of the China yellow pages. you need to filter the vocal cords and the translations several times through a machine that processes them are 1.9 million gigabytes/second for at least 3 years before you can decipher 'an-china pet-tor-wrist' to be 'angina pectoris'. sometimes, if all the other people i work with in my assigned room are chinese, i ask them to speak in their mother tongue instead. which is pretty kewl, because along the way i get to learn loads of useful chinese terms like 'kang shen shu' (antibiotics) and 'dian liao' (radiation therapy) and 'nei ge' (that one - referring to the penis).

it's even better though when my entire bunch of co-workers for the day are all cheena -piang Singaporeans. cos the words chee bye and lan jiao come in really handy here.


Tuesday, March 13, 2007

project 355: the view from the top

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recently, i've been contemplating the delights of moving out and having an abode of my own. all this passion for my own home was rekindled when the boyfriend and i spent an evening over at his photographer friend's place. Aida's accommodations being nestled somewhere in the quaint settings of Dakota Crescent. 'Dakota' here brings to mind the girl who acted beside Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds. it also reminds me of the many laughs my army mates had back then over the 'Fanning' (or more like the Fanny) in Dakota. ugh. Straight people are so uncouth.

but i really like Aida's home. it's neither something Martha Stewart would approve of. nor a spread Home and Living would do in a picture of 'Grunge housings'. but it has plenty of electronics and designer touches in it. the randomly placed arty DVDs. the stacked copies of designer magazines. the beauty in the messiness (not that your house is very messy or what, Aida) is what makes the home really personal. plus, the humble 3-room apartment was used for a photo shoot with a hot Brazilian model with 'pink nipples' and 'she does Sudoku while waiting for the next shoot' as i roughly paraphrased Aida's words, it's so Bohemian. perfect setting for an Indie film.

i was smoking outside my temporal home of 8 years just 20 minutes ago, when it dawned upon me that if i were to get my own Bachelor's pad, it would have to be sanitary. not in a Whisper ultra-thin kinda way. but more like the surrounding estate would have to be pretty clean. at least a bit better than where i'm staying at now. Chua Chu Kang is not exactly the cleanest estate in Singapore. the road-sweeper in-charge of cleaning my estate is this slow rheumatic Indian lady who seems to take her own sweet time to do her work. bless her soul for doing something as altruistic as making the environment habitable. but maybe a fit and healthy Banglah would be more willing to do the same job much faster. plus, i always gave cigarettes to the Banglah that used to maintain my block of flats. he's a nice guy, albeit, reeking of yesterday's leftovers.

another requisite for my very own home would be that it has to be in the heartlands. not that i'm too concerned with staying in the very expensive city center. in fact, with the money i pay for rental in an Orchard Road apartment, i could have several more rental hotels tucked away in the heartlands. that would give me bragging right to say things like 'Oh I'm going back to my Summer home in Toa Payoh today'.

the thing about living with the auntie and uncles of the heartlands is that you don't really have to give a shit as to what you wear when you need to go downstairs to get some tofu for brunch. it's quite a hassle to have to put on concealer when you want to avoid scaring the many secondary school students located at the nearest shopping outlet, which happens to be a shopping mall. plus, cigarettes are almost always 50 cents cheaper here, compared to those you get at 7-11 or the mamak stalls in the city.

i used to obsess over the need to live in a high-rise apartment stuck in the middle of the city. and when i looked down from my balcony, i can see Heeren on my right and Suntec City on my left. that comes from watching one too many episodes of The OC and Nip/Tuck. i used to envision myself during my early 30s. i would come back home, open my refrigerator with the metallic door, help myself to some Pinot Noir, lying on my designer divan, with some melancholic bossa nova playing in the background. that was a phase that tided me through my time with the previous organization.

now, all i want is just a simple place with a king-sized bed. i think the motivating factor lies with the fact that i can actually have the boyfriend sleep over. of course lah, it all starts with the $$$. which is like practically non-existent now.

oh well, at least i've got a roof above my head now.


Monday, March 12, 2007

project 355: east coast, ugh

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like tired old couples who's relationships seem to have fizzled out, the paternal family is sorta going through a mid-life crisis of sorts too. the only difference is that instead of strap-ons, dildos, cock rings or perhaps a swingers' party, the entre family opts for the less adventurous activities of the culinary sort. things like eating at a random Teochew restaurant, a-balling sessions, or the latest installment of the Teo family activities: a picnic at East Coast Park. and you guys know how much i hate the outdoors, especially when they are teeming with Singaporean children.

now, before you start thinking that i was a child that they picked up from the Mongoloid Adoption Agency, i assure you, that the Teo in the father's name is related to my Zhang. apparently, the Teochew translation for Teo is Zhang. when i just came out fresh from the mother's vage back then, the nurses at KK Hospital insisted that it was government policy to use the Chinese version of the father's surname instead of the Teochew. at this point, i'm trying to come up with a lame joke about my family name and how the Teo in Teochew tends to have oral tendencies (TEO-CHEW, munch!). but words fail me. still, Zhang Hong'en prolly gets my privates more 'chews' than Teo Hong Woon would.

anyways, these 'happening' outings with the family tend to happen mainly on Sundays. and this is why i sometimes think God is cruel. as if church in the morning isn't enough, the paternal family has declared Sunday as the official weekend to meet up. that's why most of my Sundays are never ever free, but rather engaged with wholesome family activities, mainly involving food (the family are really big foodies). Sundays, supposedly being the day of rest, ends up being a workout of 45 minutes of cardio round my estate after the day's load of carbs and fats from dinner.

it was the idea of John Chua's mother, to actually try an East Coast outing. she's the one always wanting to try these randomly new stuff. and her husband is the one who always tags along, as long as he has his Business Week or Business Times or Strait's Times with him. i have the same habit as the husband, only difference is that i do a more trashy read like 8 days or People magazine or some chick lit. still, that doesn't reduce the fueling hate that i have garnered for a gigantic public park like East Coast. the fact that it's in the East already fills me with dread (i live in the west). and it has a COAST. like oh how i hate the sea. it's vast, it's salty and it's always coming in and out of the shoreline. it sounds like an erotic depiction of something dirty, but i assure you, our Singaporean seas are so much filthier than a porn magazine.

and East Coast park on a Sunday is most prolly the worst day you can ever visit it. there are school children everywhere. families everywhere. the smell of barbeque. people who shouldn't have their tops off, having their tops off. needless to say, i didn't really enjoy myself when it came to smoking. i have to give lame excuses like 'oh i'm going to get some latte' or 'i'm going to go walk around'. then i'll quickly smoke two sticks and return feeling a tad high and guilty, because i reek of cigarette smoke.

still, who am i to whine? i have a great family who bothers meeting up every weekend. cousins who attempt to go on movie outings on a regular basis. and a supposedly gay cousin in the making (he's the little boy in the picture above). how many people can boast of such a thing?


Sunday, March 11, 2007

project 355: hell hate no fury like the gay christian scorned...

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...though there's a very high likelihood i'll be burning in hell after the demise of my mortal body. maybe that's why there's all this pented-up angst in me. the church that i've attended since childhood believes that homosexuality is wrong. it's the way of the broad and easy, filled with plenty of gay bars along the way. of course, it ultimately leads to hell where the things that are hot there are not only the men, but also the flames of eternity. everybody in the church seems to know this fact, which is why (i guess), that the topic of sexuality is seldom brought up as a sermon topic. it's good actually. because i won't have to live through the awkward conversations with the parents after the sermon. the parents absolutely enjoy relating the day's sermon to every single sin that i commit. on the ride to lunch, they would say things like 'So Jon, you hear today's sermon right? What did the pastor say about homosexuality? it's wrong! you better repent while you still can... blah blah blah... gnashing of teeth... burning forever... no way back...'. the whole time i will have my ipod and Madonna to console me.

still, church and sunday school used to be something that i looked forward to during my primary school days. the sunday school system was split up into the respective levels of primary school. so every year, you belonged to the grade of education that you were currently studying. primary one to three involved a lot of candies and chocolates and fantastic stories from the bible. everything seemed magical. there were angels, sinking constructs built on sand, gigantic boats with pairs of creatures, three old men with expensive gifts for the Messiah and my favourite bible story back then, Jesus feeding the 5 thousand just with a small amount of bread and fish. Jesus had a Gospel rally sorta thing going on back then and there were about 5 thousand people at this event. most of them didn't bring food. but a nice little boy offered his share of bread and fish. so Jesus did his miracle of breaking the bread and fish. and he broke and he broke them into little bits. somehow, there was enough (i'm assuming) Tuna Sandwiches to feed the five thousand. in fact, he broke the bread and fish until there were 12 baskets full left over. now, if only someone could repeat the same miracle in them third world countries. then perhaps we'll stop receiving those guilt-laden UNICEF letters with the chopstick (they don't give a pair, they only give one) in the mailbox. i don't donate to UNICEF by the way. got Angelina Jolie what.

primary 4-6 involved a bit more hardcore stories about the horrors of life and what happens when you don't listen to the guy up there. people get stoned to death. if you cheat with your offering money, you get struck down by lightning on the spot. the bad guys always get their just desserts. and the first time i heard about the concept of adultery was not from the SBC dramas of the 90s, but rather from sunday school during primary 4. one woman in the bible slept with someone else other than her husband (can't remember who). she was supposed to be stoned to death. but Jesus came by and saved the day with the classic quote about 'he who is not guilty of sin ought to cast the first stone'. or something like that. can't remember for the life of me. like ZOMG. i really think i'm suffering from a juvenile form of Alzheimer's.

but what really got me off the beaten track of bible classes was the teenage years. of course, i discovered i was gay at 14. that was a contributing and struggling factor till 16. but i owed most of the struggle to the fact that i disliked the youth group i attended during those secondary school days. and Norman, my fellow church smoker and accountant-in-training is one who can relate to me on this. the youth group 'leader' back then was someone who was prejudiced against people who lacked education. i could see the superficial smile he always had on his face when he talked to the neighbourhood secondary school kids. most of us were from 'boutique' schools like ACS and RGS and MGS and all them schools where the average parents drives a SUV or BMW or whatnot. the rest who were from the heartlands were given lesser attention. it's like Jesus is not for the masses, but for the elite. 'elite, uncaring face' comes to mind here.

and there was a lot of peer pressure involved in those classes. i remember one bible camp where we had a night lesson. it was something about one's salvation and all that crap about accepting lord Jesus in your heart, blah blah heard-it-since-kindergarten routine. it ended with us teenagers having to make a symbolic decision whether to join the 'Lord's side' or 'The World'. so the room was divided into two: one side represented the world, while the other represented God's family. and as teenagers, nobody wants to be outcasted and ostracized. so obviously, everyone picks the Lord's side. i can imagine those who didn't would spend the whole night getting 'counselled' by the youth leader. god, how i hate that word. it's a word that's supposedly filled with passion and stuff. but the corporate world has turned it into a tool for light chastisement. like a slap on the wrist. it's a slap. but still, it hurts.

looking back, i'm kinda glad that the days of Christian education are over. i'm sure some of you back-sliders can relate to what i'm trying to say. they have Girls Gone Wild. in my case, it's Gay Christians Gone Wild, which would make a really good reality porn (which has been like all the rage since Bang/Bait Bus) series featuring church-going boys being persuaded into having sex for cash. of course, despite ranting on and on about how much i hate Christianity and the narrow-mindedness i've experienced with it, i still have to go to church.

this is to rack up those 'filial piety' points that i oh-so-need now, given that i'm getting distant from the parents (not that i have been any closer to them since they found out my preference for the masculine parts). despite the fact that i'm going to hell, i still need their inheritance in the event of death. afterall, i'm living on this earth before going to hell. might as well be rich, no?


Saturday, March 10, 2007

project 355: malaysia eh sai!



this is why malaysians are so proud to be. they are willing to embrace themselves for what they are. regardless of how unglam they look and how tak class they are. not like Singaporeans who aspire to be something that they are obviously not (eg. importing world-class acts that cost money, Crazy Horse, the IR, world-class education system). still, who am i to complain when i'm living comfortably in this little red dot of a country? then again, i'm sure Muar has crappier gay clubs compared to Singapore. minimal anthems and i'm assuming the worst case scenario here: Jolin Tsai mixed with house music (gasp!) or crappy cheena-piang rap videos like these. oh my god. someone please send DJ George to Muar can?


Friday, March 09, 2007

project 355: gay violence never looked so beautiful

it's not everyday that you get to see carnage, violence and bloodshed all conducted by a group of hunky men in tight leather briefs and taut 6-packs. i know, you, the adamant and stubborn reader, refuse to accept the fact that gay men can behave in a violent and brutal manner, killing enemies with great style and slash-strokes. but the fact that the 300 men of Sparta are doing it with style and (tight!) leather undergarments, isn't that gay enough for you?

if you insist, the closest i can think of are several bittorrent-ed gay porn videos i've downloaded before. of course, they have really suspect names like Fisting Underground 3, Pain Party or the most ludricious porn title i've known to date: Bondage Comedy. like how funny can men in leather chaps and nipple clamps be? maybe ridiculous. but definitely not anywhere in the ranks of humorous.

i think it's pretty evidential that most gay men are not the violent types. always preferring witty repartee to a pistol repartee (unless the pistol is a 'pistol', if you get my drift). maybe that's why the majority of gay porn in the market these days, seem to have this sense of violence and macho-ness in it. rape scenes, cowboy shootouts, bondage sessions, military prisons, and even Mafia-related stories. i think it's one of those pink smokescreens to show that no matter how faggoty we homosexuals can be, we're still very in touch with our manly sides okay! not that there's anything wrong with getting to know the feminine instincts in us. but seriously, how many gay people do you think there are, who dare to press a bright, red button that can launch a nuclear bomb that would change the face of this world forever? come to think of it, the only buttons that they would prolly know are the ones on the jeans of the men they are trying to unbutton.

but back to the movie. i have so much praise for the movie to begin with. i've already gushed over the fact that it's very gay with those hunky men in shorts. it has brilliant cinematography with the slow-motion fighting scenes. the soundtrack is very dark, majestic and adrenaline-pumping at the same time. a bit reminiscent of Constantine's (which coincidentally is taken from a comic series too). and there's even a little bit of something for our lezzie sisters too. a scene of a nubile, young Oracle with pinkish titties doing some sorta sex-dance-ritual thing.

you know how movie posters have critic's review plastered across them like headlines? like 'Gripping! - New York Post' or '(insert punny quote with relation to movie title)' - 8 Days or 'Great!' - i-weekly. if it were up to me, i would get rid of the blood-red title of 300 and splash it a translucent and spermy white.

'I'm GUSHING over it!' - Jonathan Zhang


Thursday, March 08, 2007

project 355: i need to masturbate

Jon is taking a break today. he hasn't really been sleeping well over the past few days, given the late night outings with the boyfriend and having to supply at least one blog post a day. plus the thing going on at the hospital that he calls a job, it's not exactly very forgiving on the physical. so he's declaring today as 'Me' day. one whole day to indulge and pleasure himself. to Me-asturbate. as he tends to call it.

cheers.

PS. i just realized that i have this liquid diet thing going on, as evidenced by the picture. i spend an entire day taking in mostly liquids. the blue Quiksilver water bottle i use during gym. the free water bottle given by GNC when i used to take protein supplements, not that it helped. and Heineken when i want a beer belly, that's the only one that helps.


Tuesday, March 06, 2007

project 355: auntie, uncle, one dollar!

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i ought to start considering a moonlighting career down at the Orchard road tunnel. i think i can do a very good imitation of the 'One Dollar' song, complete with auntie costume and dramatic makeup. just for singing a catchy singlish tune that's endearing to the hearts of the average Singaporean, i bet i can earn up to about a hundred bucks for every 8 hour shift i put in. that's way better than the $60/shift that i get for working in the #*@!($#@! hospital. plus i get the chance to appear in a local Singapore arthouse film if a local director takes interest in my inspiring story of grit and hard work. who knows, i might get to sing the 'One Dollar' song in Teochew Opera style in the upcoming Royston Tan film about getai singers.

but still, the most major problem i have now is money. i know, it's all 'bout the money, isn't it? well, i swear. i haven't been clubbing. i haven't been drinking. i haven't been spending money on lubes and rubber (not that i do it bareback with the boyfriend, but let's lay off the anal for a while eh? you can also have fun with your mouth what!). shit, i don't even have money to get my eyebrows plucked. it's not my fault that i now have a uni-brow (or maybe i can blame the frown that i developed from all the monetary problems) and am scaring the world shitless. forget the Royston Tan film already! i'm gonna be the next Asian Horror superstar to be remade into an American blockbuster.

after my typical routine of lamentation over money, people would often ask what i spend on. and i know it's only three things, really: transportation, cigarettes and food. transportation i have no choice, i signed on with a hospital that practically located in the heart of Singapore. cigarettes, i get cranky without them and i piss people off and give them attitude which leads to a bad job evaluation which leads to even lower pay which leads to less cigarettes and i get cranky without them and i piss people off and give them attitude.... you get the vicious cycle. and food. i practically never eat during working hours. preferring to drink the filtered water from the water cooler that's dispensed into the nearest receptacle that i can reach for, the urine specimen cup. clean, unused ones that is. water cooler, freeflow of drinks and a good place to catch up with hospital gossip.

so you see, what do i spend on really thus landing me in this predicament of poverty? now that i have to save on cigarettes. i have cut down drastically on smoking. with the start of the Foundation Program, i have been doing a daily average of about 8 sticks a day. there's only 20 in a pack. which is never enough for anyone who smokes. so what's a lowly-paid health-care worker to do when he's out of fags? he cuts down by half. literally. the current plan that i use to cut down involves me stubbing out every cig i smoke at the halfway mark. thus i leave the remnant to be smoked at a later time, albeit a short cigarette break, but still a cigarette break nonetheless.

my financial-advisor (who's thinly-disguised as an insurance agent) is not really helping with his aggressive advise on purchasing more 'plans'. i have downgraded from Redken to Sunsilk. no more Marlboros, but more Viceroys. lunch? out of the question. now if only someone could afford to buy me one of those 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' books.


Saturday, March 03, 2007

project 355: I izz GaY AnD TrYin ToO FaRkiN HarD To AcT CuTeZ (bLe@hzzzz!)

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i've always disliked friendster and all the other mainstream 'friend-making' personals of the same genre. maybe it stems from the fact that the random strangers that i seem to attract are not the gorgeous and drop-dead types that i expect. i attract really wierd and bizarre people like rotting fruit to houseflies under a hot brazilian sun. in case you can't catch the metaphor, the above analogy is not a good thing. still, i met the hot boyfriend over Trevvy. so who am i to complain about the bane of online dating and friendships. i thought that the era of Friendster (which was like during 2002-2005, i think) was like so over since nobody added me as a friend for quite a while. but just as the way black rappers love to mix an old tune from the 80s into their oh-so-hip rap tracks, Friendster reared it's ugly face again.

just the other day, i received one of these random requests, (i suspect) to get into my Friendster pants. or to be a bit more humble, just to hold my Friendster hand. some random person with the nick of Chandra F Tan from Batam, Indonesia, sent me an invite to view his Friendster page. oh my god. can i just die now? this chap is the epitome of EVERYTHING THAT I HATE. oops. sorry. let me rephrase that. EvERyTHiNgZ d@+ I H@TeZzzzz WoRzzzzzz!!! other than 6-10 year old ang moh kids, who would ever declare their idol as Harry Potter? you Izz not a bad boy? shit, you izz da bad shit with your motherfuckin' font, gay boy (i assume he's gay, because of his fugly font and his demure-looking gay pictures). i know, batam boy obviously means no harm. but oh that font!!! i cannot stand people who type like that. really. i mean it's nice and all on your blog or friendster or whatever. but if you want to use your Harajuku saccharine sweet japanese-porn-sounding font to get to know me, then really, go look for someone of the same ilk.

i sent a message to the boy. i know i'm horrible. but i told him that he needed to grow out of his 'FunKy FoNtZ' phase. i give him credit for the Kingdom Hearts 2 wallpaper though. i like Kingdom Hearts. for starters, it has decent fonts.


Friday, March 02, 2007

project 355: 2 more weeks to rage against the machine

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i'm really counting down the days to the end of the Foundation Program. most of the people in there are horrid. it's boring like hell. i smoke more sticks than i usually smoke because of this boredom. i find it hard to keep awake. i tend to eat at the hawker centre since it's so near and cheap (not to mention, oily, fattening and artery-clogging). given that i've been to this Foundation Program after i graduated with my Diploma (that was 2 years ago), it's quite a chore to have a go at it again. true lah, it's a refresher and all, but still, the course is only as interesting as those Chinese cultural documentaries that Channel 8 oh-so-loves to show on them weekday afternoon. i'm sure you must have stumbled upon one of those before. slow side-scrolling views of Chinese calligraphy (it's always about some form of flora or fauna, or perhaps fully-clothed courtesans) accompanied with even slower traditional Chinese music. in the time it takes to finish watching one of those documentaries, i could prolly start a family of 5 and even have some time left to have an affair.

but i digress (as usual). the hospital presumes that i must have forgotten every single little thing about nursing after my time with the previous organization. so they prolly decided that i desperately needed the refresher. it's not that they are wrong to do it, but i guess i'm much better off without it. besides like i said yesterday, it's the people that make or break one's workplace. if you are perverted like me, you can even say something like 'just like a mass orgy, it's the people that make or break the workplace'. that might just garner you some cool points, thus enabling you to 'make' (LOVE in) the workplace.

so for this particular Foundation Program, i've been sitting with a really select bunch of people. namely, people of my age group. the people in nursing are a really diverse group in terms of age and number of working years. it's really a whole continuum of the work force. with the introduction of the career switch policies that the Work Development Agency has come up with, we are seeing many of these mid-life crisis types popping around the hospital these days. i'm guessing that the decision to leave their high-paying (frankly speaking, most of these people rarely have high-paying jobs) and cushy jobs is part of the crisis too. why? because nobody joins nursing at 40 for money, career-advancement or anything that gains you some form of material wealth.

thank goodness that there are still a fair number of young people in the program. fresh graduates from the polytechnic that haven't been scorned and demoralized by the true state of nursing in Singapore. i have joined the ranks of them who have been. there's a bunch of us guys who were with the previous organization (the one that begins with the letter 'A') before re-entering the hospital again. now that we're back to the hospital, we've picked up plenty of bad habits. smoking, being the top one that keeps us together. nothing really expresses cynicism and angst against the machine like a cigarette. plus it keeps a slew of conversational topics coming along. we exchange new secret spots to smoke in the hospital. we share the latest rumors about pay-rises circulating in the various departments. the affairs going on between the infernal doctors. whether there are any of our own doctors who place cameras in the shower room. redundant stuff like that.

i'm the only gay one though. and i'm not coming out. for now, i shall just enjoy my time smoking away with them, me in my cross-armed bitchy pose, while expressing angst and cynicism against the health-care machine.

PS. the evaluation form in the picture is going to hell. why? because the department cheats! if you shade '2' (partially meets expectations) for any of the ratings, they expect you to give a reason why. and once you state the reason, they will then call out your name (if you stupidly decide to write yours, like me) and speak to you personally, assertively trying to counter the reason that you wrote down to explain your '2'. and they won't let you go back to your seat until change your '2' to a '3' (meets expectations) at least. if you can't accept criticism, then why ask for it? (lights a cigarette)


Thursday, March 01, 2007

project 355: don't friend don't friend lor!

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i try not to mix pleasure with work given that work at the hospital is horrid enough as it is. but it's always the people at work that make the job itself bearable. i have this policy when it comes to homo sapiens. 'crazy until proven otherwise'. which is why i have many acquaintances and few friends. or maybe it's just my anti-social nature. i wouldn't know. nobody goes round asking fellow human beings 'excuse me, but are you psychotic and clingy because i'm considering making you my friend?' which is why everybody at my Foundation Program think i'm this anti-social thing that doesn't bother talking sincerely at all. until i went out with a bunch of them, that is. more on that in tomorrow's post. still, i'm the one who always gives these anti-organization and smartass remarks. it scares everyone away, which is basically the desired effect. that way, i don't have to entertain acquaintances and answer all those introductory questions at all. in fact, my latest whoopass reply that i always have to answer goes something like this:

Random Person: So what do you do for a living?

Me: I'm a nurse.

RP: Oh wow. A male nurse! That's interesting! Why nursing?

Me: That's a really long story you know. When i was a very impressionable young boy, my father he took me to the city, to see this marching band. He said something like 'Son! When you grow, would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned?'. Then he went on 'Will you defeat them, your demons, and all the non-believers and the plans that they have made'. Then i was like. Ok lor. So here i am.

RP: Ehrm okay. I'm going to get more champagne. (leaves)

hoorah! one less irritating person. and more time for me to focus on you, my readers. so do you think you are the psychotic and clingy type because i'm considering making you my friend?



About Me


Name: the nurse
Home: Singapore
About Me: i'm a nurse, i'm gay, i smoke, i play the piano, i patronize the theatre, i flip through glossy magazines for no apparent reason, i love sex, i am a left-handed libran, i watch art-house films mostly, i love house music, and did i say i love sex?
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