The woman's side of the story

Johnson and I met through a friend (Samuel) during our University days. I remembered that particular night when I was looking for Samuel to ask him about some questions I have with my Psychology major assignment. I took a walk over from my Hostel (then Temasek Hall) to the USP (University Scholars Program) Building with my books, to find Samuel with his 3 other friends. I did not take notice of any of his friends but as focused on talking to Samuel, I recalled. After a short time with Samuel and his friends, Sam offered to give his friends and I a ride back to our hostels. At that time, Johnson was staying at Eusoff Hall. As such, Sam gave both of us a ride back and he dropped us off at an intersection of the carpark between Temasek and Eusoff hall and both of us took a short walk back to our halls... It was then we began our 1st conversation together, and what connected us was our "not so glorious" grades at school... Then we both left after a 3mins conversation.

Many months later, I decided to make a switch in my majors. I made a switch from Psychology major to Social Work major in mid 2004. Because of such a change and Social Work major always has a small cohort group, Johnson and I began meeting each other more regularly than we expected. Once I remembered entering my 1st Social Work core major class - I think it was Dr Alex Lee's class on Counseling theories... I entered from the back door and saw Johnson entering from the front door all dressed in his shorts, big tee-shirt, flops and his messy uncut hair, he jumped and shouted "HEY! U R HERE!" and I replied "ya man! really suay!" and we laughed. But we didn't sit together as I wasn't exactly comfortable to sit in front and I didn't want too much attention.

So I sat behind with my good friend - Anna who will always bring a smile to my face, and will always remind me of God's faithfulness and love to me. :) Johnson will always deliberately shaking his head a lot and move left to right to distract me - as I was sitting behind. And I remembered sending him an sms "OIE! Stop moving your body and head... very distracting! Pay attention in class eh! haa.." and He would KEEP moving.

Since then, Johnson and I met each other very regularly as the modules available were limited. As I had to clear most of my core modules, out of 5 modules each semester, I would be taking 4 social work modules - and out of the 4 mods, Johnson will also be in 3 or 4 of the classes. So we ended up meeting in class many times a week, and as both of us stayed in hostels, we eventually studied together at the AS6 so called ARTS crusade corner.

I wasn't in Campus Crusade then, but Johnson was. And he was always busy with his crusade activities, I recalled once reprimanding him for taking up so much time away from his studies... hehe. But I also recalled once Johnson going through the "satisfied" booklet - to assure my salvation and walk with God then... We also spent a lot of time studying together with our friends - Sarah and David, Li-en and hansel, Eeleen and Clydia etc.. Most of the time, Johnson and I would stay the latest in school to mug through the night during exams period.

And when Johnson is bored, he will always bring out games from the crusade locker. ONCE we played funny JENGA at 3am in the morning, where there are forfeits on each brick that is on the Jenga block. I recalled he had to do a belly dancing - with his clothes on la! coz it was part of the forfeit and he also had to "sit on someone's lap". So instinctively he took a piece of paper, wrote "someone's lap" and sat on the paper... ... ...

I recalled during the Meta camp 2004, God spoke to me about Johnson and I was so afraid. I was fearful of anymore failed relationships and battled with the Lord even of the possibility of liking him. As Johnson wasn't the kind of guy that I will naturally fall for, God knew the best for His creation (me) even better than I know myself. As the time flew by I realized that our friendship got a lot closer. Soon, I decided to bring this issue to surface to redraw our lines and friendship, so that I could guard my heart and he could guard his.

During that conversation we had, we were clear of our friendship and that we would not go into any relationship as back then Johnson had another girl in mind (but the girl didn't like him). And so we continued our platonic friendship and surely in God's guidance it grew stronger and we are like best friends to each other. In the next few months, Johnson began asking me out more frequent than ever. He would call me up early in the morning at 7am to ask me to meet him at the backdoor of my hostel, to pass me my favorite breakfast - Chee Kuay where he bought from Clementi for me. Soon enough, many people around asked us if there was anything going on between us. And I would always say, "no way man. We are best friends!" and I really meant it. People will always joke that "if you two really get together, you'll probably be the noisiest laughing couple"

Just one evening while we were walking back from the ARTS library, while we were crossing the road, Johnson ran over and grabbed my hands. We talked about our hearts and decided to take 2 weeks to pray and seek God on the matter. On 4 April 2005, Johnson and I met up again to talk and we decided to enter into a relationship...