I woke up this morning on a mission.

The window in my room faces north right into a mountain. The mountain catches the light at sunrise and sunset. I had seen the view many times from sunset. I had never seen the mountain at sunrise.

I just don't get up early enough to see the sunrise. I like sleeping. It's one of my favorite activities, especially in college. My earliest classes are around 9 AM, so I don't have much reason to get up too early.

This morning, my mission was to finally see the sunrise from my window.

I planned this out in advance. I have to because this is so far out of my routine, and I'm a routine kind of guy.

I set my alarm for 6:15 AM, five minutes before the sun was supposed to rise, because I knew I would grumble and take a while to get out of bed even when I'm excited about something (have I mentioned I like sleeping?) I filled up a bottle of water so I didn't have to look for something to drink. I got a bowl of Chex Mix ready on my desk so I didn't have any excuses to leave. I was prepared.

I set a reminder to go to sleep at 9 PM last night in anticipation of getting up early. That didn't happen.

Going to sleep at 10 PM didn't happen.

Going to sleep at 11 PM happened. That doesn't seem like much of a time difference, but it wasn't fantastic for morale.

So I woke up on time somehow seven hours later. With massive bedhead and an unwillingness to open my eyes aside, I took the morning in small steps.

Open my eyes.

Sit up.

Put my glasses on.

Move out of bed.

Climb down to the floor (my dorm bed is raised).

Sit down at my desk.

Eat food (the easy part). I had the Chex Mix and happily munched away until I forgot how tired I was supposed to be.

Look out the window.

And there it was: the sunrise. The dark shadow of the mountain turned into a recognizable dirt brown. The sky, purple and no different than nighttime, faded lighter and lighter until the clouds fluffed white and everything turned bright blue.

It was a sunset, just in reverse. I'm not sure I expected anything too different. But this view at sunrise was so simple and matter-of-fact like it wasn't bringing color into the day. This happens all the time, every day. It just felt brand new. It's nice to get brand new experiences once in a while, and this seems to be a theme for my activities and my writings this semester. I'm falling in love with the places around me, one morning at a time.

Hey, maybe getting up this early in the morning was worth it. Maybe this will become a habit too...

No. I don't think so.