Not too long after arriving to the United States from China to study at the University of Arizona, Fangyuan changed her major from business to Engineering. Not too long after that, she walked into a solid state chemistry lab in the basement of the Material Science Engineering building. Somehow she was convinced that Brandon was a professor (He was not, but Teacher's Assistant was close enough). He was convinced that she was his most beautiful student. Brandon made many attempts to spend time with the mysterious girl and generously offered 1 on 1 tutoring. Turns out she was also his smartest student and with perfect scores on her labs and tests she felt no need to interact beyond designated lab hours. Brandon's subtle attempts at romance were foiled. However, they had the same major and over the years became friendly and familiar faces around the college and in the study room. As a somewhat quiet girl, Fangyuan always admired Brandon's jocularity and unrestrained nature. Fast forward almost a decade. Fangyuan has finished her PhD in high temperature ceramics and was working on a post-doc contract. Brandon had been working for a solar company and was flying back and forth between China and the US to set up new manufacturing facilities. After some texting back and forth Brandon finally convinced Fangyuan to meet for dinner. Both were nervous. Was this a professional catchup, a platonic chat, or something more...romantic?

After Fangyuan assertively dropped the hammer, we quickly became a couple and began spending all of our spare time together. Covid lockdowns meant that we were together A LOT. To the point that we reached out to a close friend and immigration lawyer to better understand the process of marriage between people of different nationalities. With total nonchalance that lawyer, Stephanie Sy, said: "Well, if you get married next month...blah blah blah blah blah blah" We're not actually sure what she said because our ears were ringing as if a flash bang had gone off based on the first half of her sentence. After hanging up the phone, Amber and I looked at each other with surprise at first. Then we agreed to give it a shot. *Of course, there was a real proposal on A mountain on the 4th of July so there were fireworks and warm champagne (but no water). By July 10th, 2020 we were married...by a judge...on Zoom. Please join us again in Tucson, in person for the party that we did not get to have before.