I doubt that many students at QC take the time to look around campus and just observe things as they are. Majority of us just go about our daily routine, rushing between classes and doing what we need to do without wasting time. It’s a typical college student thing.
However, if you have the eye of a photographer, you may notice that there are certain things on campus that are absolutely gorgeous… and absolutely random.
All of the following photos have been taken by my lovely friend Sherifa Ali. She has an eye for things on campus, and never fails to stop and take a picture. She’s my inspiration for this blog post.
If you look at the very bottom of this (sewage drain?) in the middle of the quad, you’ll see that it says INDIA. You may have to look very closely. Now, we have to wonder, why is this thing in the middle of the quad, and why does it say India? What does India have to do with it? Is it a secret portal to India, perhaps?
I’m pretty sure that that’s a sticker of Mike Tyson, though why it’s stuck to the sign of Delaney Hall, I don’t know. I know someone probably put it there, but it’s unclear why they would do such a thing. Our guess is that they secretly work for Mike Tyson, and they’re marking his territory for him.
Is this some kind of discrimination? Why is this lone little baby tree without a green plastic bag? It must feel out of place, not to mention freezing cold.
This is an image of a branch on a tree in between Kiely and Jefferson Hall. It was the middle of winter and while everyone else was rushing off to class to get away from the cold, my friend Sherifa stopped to take a picture. I remember standing behind her, impatient with cold, complaining about her tendency to stop to take pictures of what I thought was just another boring tree. I feel bad for complaining now, because if she hadn’t stopped to capture this, we wouldn’t have this pretty picture to appreciate.
For the finale of this blog post about the beauty and randomness on campus, I present to you my favorite picture from QC:
I remember the day we saw this birdhouse. We were on our way back from our math class in Kiely, and Sherifa paused to look out of the window that we were passing by on the first floor. We saw how the birdhouse was just the prettiest thing, just hanging from a little tree right in the center of the building. It swayed in the breeze, hunhindered by anything, just waiting for a bird to come and keep it company. The result of our observation was this gorgeous picture that is every indication that spring isn’t too far away.
So, what I’ve learned from all of this randomness and beauty on campus is that it’s okay to pause and just look around at your surroundings. One day, when we’re out of college, we’re going to miss the environment. We’re going to wish that we had a better memory of it, and what better way to make sure that we do have a better memory of it than by noticing the little things. The silly things, the pretty things, the strange things, and best of all- the random things.
If it weren’t for my buddy Sherifa’s uncanny ability to stop and capture what others don’t notice or ignore, I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the little, seemingly insignificant things around me. Because at it turns out, things aren’t so insignificant if we give them meaning.
To check out more pics from the lovely photographer friend that I credited in this blog post, check out her Tumblr: http://foolforphotos.tumblr.com/