A day in the life of a typical student goes something like this: wake up (probably a little too late), shower (sometimes), go to class, squeeze lunch in there somewhere, come home, do a little homework, eat dinner, finish homework, and if you are lucky, enjoy a little rest and relaxation before going to bed. Only to start all over again in the morning. Life gets busy and for some of us, life is even busier. On top of classes, homework and studying some students have jobs or even spouses and children.

It’s hard enough to find time set aside just for yourself in the midst of all the chaos related to being a student, much less the people you care about. Fortunately, there is a special day set aside where you can celebrate the people you love — Feb. 14.

Valentine’s Day seems to be either loved or hated with very little grey area in between the two extremes. It often gets a bad wrap for being a “corporate” holiday — people just spend their money on stupid cards or flowers that will eventually die. To some, these grand romantic gestures are overrated. After all, wouldn’t they mean more if they were done on any average day?

The answer is probably, but the fact is that it is so easy to get caught up in all that is going on in our lives. Sometimes we are too tired to really do anything special with or for the people that we love, whether those people are our close friends, significant others, parents, children, cousins or siblings. This being said, Valentine’s Day does not have to only include our partners, we can use this day to celebrate all the people in our lives.

Many people think that the lack of boyfriend, girlfriend, wife or husband excludes them from the Valentine’s Day festivities and, in turn, hate the holiday. However, Valentine’s Day does not need to be a day of love or sorrow depending on your relationship status. Remember in elementary school when all of your peers would exchange valentines with every other member of the class? Nobody cared if you were in a “relationship” (or at least what we thought were relationships) or not. We just had fun passing out valentines to everyone we knew and receiving them in return.

This is what Valentine’s Day should really be like, seizing the opportunity to tell the people you love that they are special to you and actually making time to do something about it while you have the time set aside to do so.

Valentine’s Day may very well be a corporate holiday, but it is also a time to take a break from the hustle and bustle of student life to celebrate our most important relationships. So, instead of spending the night in the library, go out to dinner with your closest friends. Rather than purchasing that grand grade booster from Bookends, send a nice card to your grandparents. The point of this day is not to pour money into the economy (although that may be a plus). The point of Valentine’s Day is, or at least should be, to appreciate the people around you.