It certainly is a tough decision to make when you only have week to make your decision. I'm really going to oversimplify things now and maybe sound a tad patronising (which I apologise for). Your heart has to be in doing a PhD because they really drag and it's about doggedness more than anything. However, and I'm not sure how the masters and PhD programme works, but if you do the masters and then get to design the research proposal for the PhD in something you're really interested in (such as speech and language therapy research) then it's quite a good decision. However if the PhD has to be in researching something that you're really not interested in, then I wouldn't go for it. Your heart has to be in it.
It's a shame that you have such a short time frame, because you could have tried to get on a postgraduate course for speech and language therapy and have had the masters and PhD programme to fall back on. As it stands (I know I'm stating the obvious), it's a decision only you can make. I suppose it also depends on your long term career goal, because if doing a PhD doesn't fit in with your overall plan, then there might not be much point, since you're essentially training to be an academic and researcher. However, you could do it and then try and do the postgraduate speech and language therapy course afterwards.
I'm sure someone else will be along tomorrow to give you some better advice. Good luck in whatever you decide to do :-)

Today I have, hopefully, completed my data analysis - that was my goal from getting up. According the what the numbers on my computer have given me, it works really, really well. I'm chuffed because something has actually gone right. It feels weird because all my goals from now on will involve writing and lots of it. I'm going to become a word count junkie.

Oh, forgot to mention the colour change you asked about. It'll be triphasic, so your hands and feet can change from a purple/blue-ish colour to white and then red - and you feel a burning sensation. It's just Raynaud's disease and is usually harmless, so nothing to worry about. I have it. It's just there's an association between spoon shaped nails and that.

I know exactly what you're saying. My sister has one toddler and baby and she drops the off where I live everyday for whole afternoons. It's a case of gritting one's teeth and, if things get really desperate, using ear plugs or noise cancelling headphones (they're expensive but they work) - and it doesn't matter if you look like someone from an 80s sci-fi movie in your own home. Relocation is a good suggestion but, if you're like me, it may not be practical.

Good, you're young, free and single. If he's too busy, that's his loss and your potential gain. Not to put a negative spin on things, but if he's always too busy now, it might be logical to assume that he's always going to be too busy in the future if anything more serious were to happen. (up)

I can't believe that Eastenders is winning Coronation Street. And if they bring back any soap, it should be either El Dorado or Animal Hospital. I'm classing Animal Hospital as a soap because it had all the drama of one, with tales of little animals being brought in for emergency surgery one week and then you having to wait an entire week, on tenterhooks, to find out if little Clive the Chameleon or Bugs the rabbit had pulled through. It was always sad when they didn't but Rolph Harris had such a way of breaking it to me gently: 'Well, sadly, Pereguin [the Rottweiller] didn't make it...[sigh]'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3US5J8gDFQ The look on that vet's face at after being given what for by a diabetic cat 0.52. Mind you, he did stick a thermometer up it's bum.

Sorry, Algaequeen, I did consider Hollyoaks but I had to rule it out on demographic grounds. The vast majority of the population on the soap are below the age of 20, making the soap even more unrealistic than the others. To me, it's like a weird version of Lost where a chinook helicopter carrying a small population of catalogue models and wannabe Big Brother contestants to a Fashion World convention has crash landed in Chester, resulting in them populating a small part of it. They fight, date, drink, there's occasional gun fire and a police heist and then they suddenly turn 25 and just disappear.

Of the three prime time soaps on terrestrial TV - for those of us not posh enough to have Sky or Virgin - which do you think is better: Coronation Street, Emmerdale (nee Emmerdale Farm), Eastenders? I think I like Coronation Street best because I don't feel like slitting my wrists after watching it (like Eastenders) - although I'm a bit concerned that the death rate is many times above the national average (but I suppose that applies to all the soaps). Can't say I like Emmerdale because for a little village in the Yorkshire Dales there's an awful lot a high octane action, more akin to McGuiver or Magnum PI (OMG! Dawning realisation alert: Tom Selleck should have been the rich businessman in Pretty Woman). Any road, we haven't had a poll in a while, so I've included one. (up)

I don't think that fact that someone else plagiarised your work will have any bearing on you and your potential, future academic career. It's like if you were to cut and paste a chunk from an article into your work; it has nothing to do with the original author. Rest easy (up)

The definition of what represents originality for a PhD is very broad. There's a nice section on it in this book here: http://books.google.com/books?id=pZKJxBmwKuEC&pg=PA18&dq=phd+originality&cd=1#v=onepage&q=phd%20originality&f=false

There's lots of ways you can be original with your work, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Congratulations on getting funding, by the way :-)

Yes, the longer I work on my PhD the more Niel Diamond songs I listen to. And I've started to eye up Kenny Rogers, too. To think, I used to listen to normal music. I'm also now an avid listener of File on 4, which isn't good.

There are many different forms of validity and reliability for questionnaires. Validity can be divided into face and content validity (both qualitative) and then criterion and construct (divergent, convergent and hypothesis testing) validity. Reliability can be divided into two main types: temporal and internal consistency. When looking for evidence for validity of questionnaires, there are usually validation studies available (remembering that psychometrics is sample dependent - classical test theory at least). If the questionnaire developer has been good, he/she will also have establish evidence for validation in the actual process of developing the questionnaire. Remember, a questionnaire is only as good as the evidence that proves that it measures what it is supposed to measure (validity) consistently (reliability).
Delta, which questionnaires are you talking about? (sprout)