The problem with...

...advent calendars

I am of course referring to those advent calendars which have a little chocolate behind each door (or in my case, a little Cadbury Crunchie Bite). Now, this is (in my opinion) a Good Thing. However, the excitement of a little block of chocolate each day is cruelly at odds with the other promised excitement of advent calendars: namely, getting up each morning and opening a new window. All well and good — but I can't eat chocolate at that time of the morning!

I'm afraid the only solution seems to be getting up in the afternoon. Or using the Uborka Advent Calendar instead.

...having street lights outside my window

I live in a nice hall of residence. There are a number of trees around. There are a number of birdies in said trees. Unfortunately, said birdies have not gained intelligence by osmosis (which is what's meant to happen at university) and thus conclude that, from any time between about 1am and 7am, the combination of street lights and quiet streets mean that it's just about dawn. Yes, round here the birdies tweet and twitter their way through the dawn chorus all night.

...going to bed consistently late (1)

Results in getting so tired in the process that silly things happen such as a) buying a newspaper (amongst other things), getting home and realising that, for all your neat and efficient packing in the supermarket, you managed to leave it there, and b) managing to retrieve a ringing and newly-hidden alarm clock (hidden so I have to hunt for it before I kill it), setting it in its usual place, and turning it off completely without waking up.

...going to bed consistently late (2)

Your body refuses to even think about going to bed any earlier than about 1am, even though you're tired, and consequently you find yourself staying up doing silly things... like reading the whole of A Little Princess online because of a sudden whim. And this was after the maths paper that I finished at 2:30am, and then had to get up at 7:30 the next day.

...having a compulsory "essay writing" module on a Comp Sci course

Not just that the general standard of English is evidently so low that we're required to take this (cases in point — (1) the mildly insulting sheet we were given yesterday helpfully explaining the difference between there/they're/their, effect/affect, continuous/continual, etc. and (2) the essay question I've been assigned contains the word "egalitarian". I've spoken to half a dozen students — oh, and the teacher — on the subject, and not one has known what the word meant (or, in the case of the teacher, at least how to define it). Here endeth the cases in point) but the fact that we have to give a 7-minute presentation on the essays which we have yet to write. *me runs in fear*