I spilled hot water on the little and ring fingers of my left hand. That was not the embarrassing part though. That was just painful.

No, the embarrassing part was that I was in the presence of my very proper foster sister and both parents, when, due to spilling the hot water on my hand, I screamed at the top of my voice:

Fuck!!

Oops.

I was still nine when I went to my second medical specialist. I had picked up an ear infection. Fungus was growing in my ear canal. The Ear, Nose & Throat specialist vacuumed the damned fungus out of my ear. It was painful. There was a lot of fungus. The doctor showed a little to me. Ugly, black stuff. It had been left so long in my ear, that it had made a little hole in my ear drum I had to wait until I was older to patch up.

I was ten when I went to my third medical specialist. That was to straighten my teeth. The perio-orthodontist put braces on me at age ten. My lower jaw was protruded, so they had to attach rubber bands from the front of my lower braces, to the back of my upper braces. The bands left lacerations and ulcers across my inner cheeks. I couldn't find a spot in my mouth that was free from pain or injury.

Over the next few years, I took rounds between these three specialists. My eyes kept getting worse, the ear infection kept coming back, and my braces needed regular tightening.

I broke my retainers at age thirteen, and refused to get a new one. At the same age, I finally went straight to the optometrist for a prescription, and they never gave me those nasty eye drops. My ear infections slowly receded to occasional dripping orange mucus during temperature changes (still happens to this day), and I had my ear drum patched about a year or two ago.

Mom wants me to get back into braces. She also wants me to try Lasik. Adik thinks I'm getting migraines way too often and I should get a specialist to check it out. I think that I'm way overdue to visit a gynecologist, to check on my menstrual problems. Mom's also looking for a psychiatrist to advice her on my Attention Deficit Disorder.

I hate the fact that I seem to be so physically imperfect. Migraines, period pain, deformed teeth, declining eye-sight, poor hearing. The attempts to cure them however, seem to be more painful than actually suffering them. I hate the tests. I hate the operations. I hate the medicines. So what's a little misery lumped on me by God, compared to the huge amount lumped on me by mother-fucking specialists?

It's times like these, when I miss Tariq most. His strength and gentleness make such a difference to my life on my first and second day of period. He does so much for me. Sometimes, especially in times like these, where I'm so drugged up to drown the pain I can't think, I wonder what I give him that compensates for the effort and care that he has to squander on my odd moments of useless fragility.

He hugs me, which lends me strength when I'm weak. He runs my errands for me when I'm too tired. He gets me the best food when I'm too nauseous for most edibles. He gentles his touch when my skin is too sensitive. He even sings to me (and he hates singing) so my drugged brain has something easy to focus on and find comfort in.

When I'm tired and sensitive, he becomes all I need. He is a pillar of strength and a teddy of comfort. I wonder what reward he receives in me that makes it worth all that effort?

According to Janta, my friend working for its producers, my introduction was very "bimbo" and the last scene "menaikkan bulu roma [raised one's hair]."

The first scene was on racism, and Wei had to try to hit on me and be refused due to the fact that he was Chinese. It didn't go very well. I just couldn't get into the role.

The second scene was on sexual education. I had to tell my boyfriend, acted by Wei, that I had an STD, and then he was to accuse me of sleeping with someone else. Apparently, this was heart-rendingly done.

For this one, I just tapped into my old emotions when I nearly screwed up my relationship with Tariq. After the scene was over, I could barely stand. I was damned shaky. I haven't done a seriously emotional scene in a very long time, and tapping into my emotions for Tariq in a performance is like trying to control the flow of Niagara Falls.

Feeling what I have felt with Tariq has made me a better actor. I remember performing First Player for Hamlet, and I couldn't cry for that role. I had never felt that kind of love, nor pain. I could only imitate it, I couldn't feel it. Now, I know how it feels for someone you love to look at you with disgust, to realize that someone's love for you is not as unconditional as you thought it was.

I think I would like to further my abilities in acting, now that I realize that my depth and experience has increased. Maybe after I've graduated.

To my dearest, loveliest HANI.

.... This is a gift from the heart. It may not be up to scratch, it may not have cost a lot (it DiD, but I don't remember how much) but this is the being all vulnerable & creative. I Love you, Hani. You're psycho, Loveable, deserving Love & all my compassion not because of your failing, but what you are. You deserve this gift, and more. I wish you could get something expensive & cool, and I wish I could afford it, but I suspect even after getting rich you'd treasure a crappy card & love letter than a VW Beetle. maybe. Well, you'd prefer both. I Love you. ....

I think my mind has a mental block from comprehending people's appreciation for my blog entries. To me, they're just my attempt at self-clarity, not anything interesting or fascinating.

Sometimes, I think I'm just a bimbo. I can't write intelligent essays on the state of today's politics or how to cook. I know very little. All I know about, is really, very much inward. Why I write about myself is because I know myself.

I don't see much accomplishment in such an inward expression of self. So I'm quite bewildered at how I became seventh in rank for "hani" in both google and yahoo, and how I could receive e-mails like Aiz's.

Maybe someday, the mental block will come off, and I can see.

When I fell in Love with Tariq, I locked myself in the bathroom, squatted in a corner, and cried.

I was so scared to be in Love with him. I hadn't wanted it, nor planned it. It had just happened. I was so scared that wanted to put him on my Ignore List, not just on ICQ, but in my mind. It would have been easier and less painful.

I know, however, that life was not about running away from pain, but about experiencing all it has to offer. The world's beauty is not just in the pretty, tame, secure and safe things. There's beauty in the world's famine, desert, disease, war, and injury. A disturbing, terrible, painful beauty, that I know I don't want to leave the world without some memory of.

I wanted to avoid Tariq for the rest of my life, because I was so afraid to need another person who could disappoint and hurt me. I had just learnt to love myself at that point, and found some peace within. Then God had to throw a virus into the working program, and I was so scared that the fragile program couldn't take it. I didn't want to test my fragile self-confidence with someone who might matter enough that he could shatter it.

I didn't run though. I stayed. I sat there, and told him how scared I was. I let him hug me and hold me, and tell me he Loves me, and I let myself Love him back. I hadn't wanted to Love or be Loved, but Love doesn't come because you want it. It just comes when it does. You have to seize it when it comes, or you'll lose it, and you'll never know if it even comes again.

The pain of Love was all I feared it to be, but the rewards were more than I could ever have dreamed of in the wildest of dreams. They were not rewards that I sought, because I never knew they existed to be sought after. All those tales of Love your average girl longs for, is only the surface glitter of the real thing. The real thing has more than glitter. It has substance, forged into deep serenity through agonizing pain.

I suspected, but I know for sure now, that Love is not like possessions to be dreamed of and longed for. It is like a war for one's rights, to be endured because it is necessary, and when won, rewarded with what should have been yours from birth.

My Love has taught me that pain is not to be feared, but to be used, as a tool, to know where, in your life and on your body, things are not right. I Love you, Tariq.