Graduation draws closer and despite my desperate attempts to finish everything over the next two weeks, I am looking back daily over my college years to see if I really learned anything.
Some of the most interesting lessons came from figuring out how to look past my prejudices and false impressions.
For instance, it took me awhile to understand how walking and running could cure diseases.
The first time I talked to people who were doing a three-day walk for a "good cause," I had to wonder why.
I pictured people scurrying around like little ants getting high on their misguided feelings that they were improving society by moving about.
And people are supposed to donate money for it?
It turns out sometimes the messengers can be more important than the stated message to convince cynics like me.
My first taste of sweet enlightenment came from a story I put together for my reporting class last spring.
Wandering around campus looking for something to write about, I couldn't miss the Relay For Life table in front of the Memorial Union.
I did what everyone should do before making judgments - I asked questions.
Yes, Relay For Life, the American Cancer Society's signature event, was mostly about awareness and fundraising for cancer. Fine goals, but almost anything can claim to have those functions.
What struck me was the enthusiasm and sense of purpose of the volunteers. Going to the info session connected me with more dedicated souls.
I think in the end it was the simple honesty of the volunteers that made me abandon the journalistic principle of noninvolvement and sign up as a participant after I had completed my article.
As the Relay date drew near, I learned just how pervasive cancer is in the world. A few days before the event, I received news that my grandmother had been diagnosed with cancer and would be undergoing difficult treatments over the next year.
Suddenly it was personal. Suddenly I realized the real reason people walk, run and relay to make a difference.
Awareness and fundraising are what draws people, but they stay for the community.
Hundreds of people from the ASU community gathered that night to form another community, one that understood the threat and pain of cancer and fought against its influence in life. A community that, cliched as it sounds, was determined to keep hope alive - even if it meant staying up all night on the track field.
The donors became the extended community, the support group that both affirmed the purpose of those who gathered and hoped with them.
And all together this local community became part of a global community that honored those who suffered and defied the spread of that suffering.
A couple of weeks ago, the doctors could no longer find traces of cancer in my grandmother.
Last weekend's Relay let me give back to the community of dreamers and fighters whose efforts over the decades had produced the methods that allowed me to keep her.
A year had brought me full circle. The goals of awareness, fundraising and honoring those who have battled the disease had becoming meaningful.
I guess it takes a community to reform a doubter.
Reach the reporter at: francesca.vanderfeltz@asu.edu..
