The Clock Is Ticking...

And no, it is not a bomb.

So I have two countdowns that I am dealing with right now:

1. Days until I move to Boston - 6 days
2. Days until I get to see Courtney again - 89 days (75 if I'm lucky)

Here's the deal. I finally found out who my roommate is after months of waiting, and he seems like a really cool guy. He plays piano just like me and it should be interesting having two musicians who play the same instrument in the same dorm. I've been placed into 270 Commonwealth Avenue, which doesn't have a dining hall, but has community bathrooms, a public kitchen, a lounge area, and an exercise/fitness room which seem to be some perks. I had a small taste of dorm life just the other day, actually.

270 Commonwealth Ave

Just yesterday I drove up to Tampa, which for those of you who don't know is a three hour drive from where I live. I guess I wanted to be there so badly that I made it in two and a half hours. Anyways, I drove up to Tampa to see my wonderful girlfriend Courtney, who is currently attending the University of South Florida. I got to eat in one of the dining halls (Champion's Choice) and I also got to sit through a convocation for the honors college, which was kind of awkward considering I didn't even attend the school. The head of the school kept going on about how we were all the best and the brightest, about how lucky we were to have chosen USF, and how we would all graduate in three years. I, however, felt out of place knowing that I could have been there and been a student, yet I was sitting there knowing that I would be going to college in Boston. Anyways, Courtney showed me around the school, at least the parts where she has classes, and I got to meet her roommates as well as her podmates, who all seemed very eager to meet me. If they ever decide to read this, "you all are awesome!"

For dinner, Courtney and I went to The Mellow Mushroom, although I will admit that it was quite an adventure finding it. We passed an Olive Garden on the way and we quickly decided we would rather eat there, not knowing that EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN TAMPA decided they would like to eat there also. We drove into the parking lot and get stuck behind this car who is waiting for another car to pull out of a parking space so he could take it. Mind you, I'm pretty sure there was no one in the car in the parking space. So we drove through most of the parking lot and found no spaces, so we decided to drive to the front and try again. And guess what. TEN MORE CARS PULLED IN, with one guy flooring it and parking his car in a spot that we are not really sure was a spot, and at that point we knew we couldn't eat there. Thus we continued our quest to find The Mellow Mushroom (which is in fact not a drug).

Yep. Definitely not a drug.

So we kept driving. And driving. And driving. For at least an hour, making plenty of U-turns on the way. We finally make it to Sheldon Road, which for the longest time we believed didn't exist because we could not find it, and took a left turn. Wrong move. We drove for at least 20 minutes looking for the place when we realized we were supposed to go the other way. At that point I was feeling exasperated and both of us were really hungry, so we drove all the way back and eventually found "The Promised Land" (which I had passed and had to make another U-turn to get into). And wouldn't you know it, there was not a single parking space anywhere. People were parked up against the curb and in peoples' driveways, but we patiently drove around looking for an open spot, because we came so far and were not going to even consider finding someplace else. After maybe 10 minutes of searching, we found "The Holy Grail" of parking places when a family finally decided to leave. I'm guessing they realized that we were waiting and that they basically controlled us because they knew we wouldn't leave, so I believe that's why they had to make the whole endeavor as long as possible. Anyways, after driving around for about an hour and a half, we made it to THE MELLOW MUSHROOM!

The magical land of hopes and dreams.

We decided to get a pizza with buffalo sauce, blue cheese dressing, bacon, onions and a variety of other delicious toppings. And we managed to save $5 through the help of Facebook. All in the name of love and adventure. But mostly love.

So that's about it! I have one more Sunday at Treasure Coast Presbyterian, and one more Wednesday at TC3, and then I am out of here!

Also, the song of the day is Bulls on Parade by Rage Against The Machine in my support of the USF bulls. Good day!