Sorry I haven’t really posted much these last few days, but this has been the mother of all weeks. I am literally exhausted.

I’m involved with a program called Relay for Life, and I have been since I was really young. It’s an organization where people raise money for American Cancer Society and then gather on a night for an event that is a full twelve hours long.

I’ve been fundraising throughout this week with my friends. On two different days, I’ve gotten up at 6:00 am, went and bought fresh doughnuts from a local shop, and sold them to college students on their way to class. On one of those days, I got up by the grace of God because, instead of setting my alarm for “am,” I set it for “pm. ” Anyway, we made a couple hundred dollars for our event, which made it worth it.

On Thursday, procrastination hit me in the face, because I had a project due that I really didn’t work on until Wednesday night. I’ve known about it since the end of September. My bad.

Friday was my registration day for next semester’s classes. That deserves a whole blog post on it’s own.

Last night was our Relay for Life event. Relay for Life is not easily described. We play games and raise money all night long and it’s a lot of fun, but there’s symbolism all throughout the night. For example, there is a track in the area that people walk around all night, which represents the journey cancer victims go through. During an opening ceremony, we have cancer victims come and we recognize them and make a lap around the track in their honor. After that, the rest of the night is pretty high-energy with games except for one instance: the luminary ceremony. People buy luminaries, which are paper bags with a light inside, in honor of loved ones who are fighting cancer or in memory of those who have lost their battle with cancer. During the ceremony, every light in the area is turned off and the luminaries are lit. Next, we have a special ceremony for those who are represented with the bags. It’s an extremely touching moment. Still, people wonder why it is an all-night event. They ask why we don’t we just have the ceremonies and be done with it. The answer is simple: cancer never sleeps. For one night, we give up being comfortable in our warm beds to pay tribute to those who are constantly facing hardships. When that sunrise comes the next morning, we have this feeling of pride because we’ve honored a group of people who are facing something that no one should have to go through. That is why we relay.

Sadly, it got down to about 34 degrees last night so it was kind of unbearable. We actually ended the event a couple hours early because so many people had gone home and the remaining ones couldn’t make it much longer. Nevertheless, it was a good night.

It goes without saying that I’ve had a long week. My body feels like it’s been through a washing machine. I actually slept until 12:30 this afternoon. Although it’s been difficult, I’ve realized something, my struggle this week is nothing compared to what cancer victims face every single day. Henceforth, I really have nothing to complain about.