Mornings

I have found that one of the most challenging parts of the day is the very first one.  Getting up in the morning.  It is such an essential part of the day, and yet very few like to do it!  There is the occasional "Morning Person" who loves getting that fresh start, but college students especially dislike it.  I go to breakfast almost every day, and I've noticed that there aren't many people there, but there are TONS of people there at dinner.  And lots of people at Harrison Grill at midnight or later.  It seems to me that the nocturnal lifestyle is fairly predominant around here.  

I have three 7:30 classes, so I am forced to get up early and regularly.  Many nights I don't get more than a few hours of sleep, but I can usually make up for it because I don't have classes very late in the day most of the time.  I like naps.  Then again, a nap introduces something of a second morning.  You have to get up again!  

I've found that the only way I can consistently be roused by my alarm clock is to set it to radio, turn the volume most of the way up, and put it most below the foot of my bed, on my desk.  The radio is so that it isn't the same sound every morning, and I never get used to it and sleep through it.  It has to be at the foot of my bed because that makes it physically impossible to snooze it or turn it off without getting up.  You might ask, "Well, why not just put it under your bed?  Its still out of arm's reach, and you probably wouldn't have to turn it up so much."  The only problem is that my alarm clock has a wonderful/terrible feature on it.  It has a motion sensor on the front, so anything that passes within about three inches of it will hit the snooze button!  That's great if you have the time to snooze it, but terrible if you don't.  I found that I would use my pillow as an extension to my arm, and just hold it in front of my alarm clock for a second, and it'd snooze!  I had to put it somewhere where I had to get down from my loft, waking me up enough to have the willpower not to go back to bed.  

My mom always called it the "Heroic Moment," and I fully understand why.