The greatest place I have ever known is in the middle of southern California’s desert territory. The place consists of bland dorm rooms that look like they’ve needed new carpeting for the past seven years, and a school in desperate need of a paint job with some color. The walls are all the same plain beige, and the staircases are horribly designed, some taking you to floors you never meant to be on in the first place.

But what makes this place great is the pieces of artwork that add splashes of color to the uniform walls, and the fact that they architects of the building made the staircases as confusing as possible on purpose, just to give the building some character. It’s the fact that, while the dorms housed beds that were better suited for prison cells and showers that required flip flops to prevent possible infections, they were also where I met two of the greatest people and best friends I will ever know in my life.

This place transformed patches of dry grass into capture the flag fields at ten minutes to curfew, and disgustingly orange practice rooms into sites for countless jam sessions. This place taught me to love people for who they are, not who you want them to be, and to apply purpose to passion in order to live life the way you’ve always wanted to. This place may have been in uncomfortably stifling weather the entire time I was there, and the food may have given me stomach aches at times, but the memories of chicken wars in the pool between classes, collective groaning while analyzing musical passages during Theory, and journeys over the freeway for a meal and sweet shots at Chiles will always make this place a home to me.