The summer before Jackson's freshman year of college, Emma was working in the office of the Wanda L. Bass School of Music. Emma was tasked with making a slide show of all the incoming freshman's headshots. Much to Emma's surprise, Jackson decided to send in the most unhinged photo (seen below) of him dining with his guitar as his headshot. Emma greeted then long-haired Jackson, accompanied with then short-haired Ben Yao, as they were LATE for their entrance exam (typical). Yet, this first interaction would lead nowhere as they passed each other going in and out of rehearsals and classrooms many times before ever speaking to each other. Jackson, the overachiever, needed to one-up Emma by graduating a year in advance so they ended up in the same class. Thus, their last year as students at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music would be very eventful. Emma noticed this guitarist in her Jazz Comp class was very talented but might be mute as she never heard him speak. But after recognizing his talent in both Jazz Band and class, she requested he play her compositions. Still, this did not lead anywhere, but the universe had other plans in mind by forcing them to be together one last chance as they were both in a 5 student seminar in both of their last semesters of undergrad. Emma felt this urge to ask him out but decided not to say anything. Emma asked Sarah Neely for her advice about if she should act on this urge, and thank goodness Sarah encouraged Emma to send that damn Facebook message. A few dates later, (coffee, ice cream) they went to the UCO Jazz lab to hear some losers neither one can remember, take themselves way too seriously. As the fedora'd snobs were snapping and nodding, Emma and Jackson were desperately trying to hold back laughter. Sneaking out of the venue before the end of the show, Emma remembered she had an assignment due at midnight, so the pair raced back home. Luckily, Emma's assignment was already two days late. Soon, Emma was coming over to Jackson's house on Valentine's Day to sit on the floor and play about 9 hours of Dungeons and Dragons. Not long after, the world shut down. Hours chatting at school became hours on Facetime and walking through the least walkable city in the world to have distanced meetings. Covid expedited their relationship and they moved to California together three months later. The rest is history. WAIT! We almost forgot about Rue. A year after moving to California they got the sweetest and bestest doggy in the entire world.