curious treasures

05/04/2026

there are curious treasures hidden everywhere for those with the eyes to find them

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In the throes of my second-last semester of college, I set foot to the great outdoors in desperate need of liberation from the confines of my prison cell (a dorm single which I had spent too much time trapped in studying and grinding assignments).

Before I graduated and no longer have a needed to visit, I figured it would be nice to explore parts of campus that I'd never visited before.

Surprisingly, I also found a handful of interesting things on this one walk.

Two tennis balls sitting in an unreachable area on the second floor of the music building.

A rubber duck with sunglasses perched on a wire fence.

Grafitti of a creature that resembles a Kuriboh from Yu-Gi-Oh. I first saw it on the stairs of the trail's forward path. Then, on the return path, I saw it again on a signpost.

Further down the return path, I found the messages of past visitors written on the beige walls of a lookout point (that was ironically obscured by the surrounding brush).

"Keep Going!"

"And I cry about tomorrow when I wake up"

"YOU VS THE WORLD..."

On the way to another college, I encountered some orange poppies. One possessed a bit more flair than the rest with its yellow-orange gradient. Two more poppies seemed to contemplate doing the same, but were still too shy to show their gradients.

In the college of social sciences, I looked down and happened to find an animal's print. It might have been a raccoon's. My second guess is opossum.

When I looked through all my findings, I remembered one more thing I found in 2023 while studying on the fourth floor of the library. On the side of the desk with privacy dividers, there was a message written in black ink, illuminated by the orange glow of the late afternoon sun:

"the sun is out and you're still here."