you know, feeling flat sans caffeine is not "just you". it's "you on caffeine withdrawal". it means you need your regular fix of caffeine, not to work better and concentrate and not be tired, but rather just to get to normal, to beat those withdrawal symptoms.
your body adjusts to regular intake of caffeine within a week of regular use. after that week, you don't get the aimed-for effects anymore, you just need the caffeine to shake of the withdrawal symptoms.

if you'd shake your "habit", and then take occasional caffeine, then you'd feel "normal" by standard and get that extra push from the caffeine. as it is, you feel flat by standard and need the caffeine to get to normal. doesn't sound like a good deal to me. (but i need my regular cup of coffee in the morning too)

to put it bluntly:
well if you want, say, a policy job. what do you think is more of a waste of time: your BMedSc or your diploma in social policy?

but if you are not sure about the value of the different degrees, and how much worth they will be on the labour market, this is not the place to ask. go to your (former) uni's career centre. they will talk to you about where you want to go careers-wise and how to get there.

i've only really seen Lee active once and liked it. Lucinda too. she's a bit mad but overall, those two seem to me to be the only two who actually try to work as a team, whereas the others are all just looking out for themselves and happy to let the team fail if it means someone else will be fired. i think you wouldn't want that attitude in your staff. but someone who can work well with other people and will get stuff done, will speak up if they don't agree but will do their job anyway - that's who you want. IMO.

well, error404... i once had a difficult "coming out" to one of my former uni professors, coming out as straight that is (or, as currently living in a straight relationship). she, herself lesbian, had for a long time been of the belief that i was gay. i was always hanging out with my best friend, who is gay, we always went to her classes together. and going to queer events, and women-only parties, and quite often bumping into said professor. i was drag-king-ing and she thought my buddy and i were a couple. when my friend started dating another girl, she was all discreetly not asking what had happened for us to break up (supposedly). after graduating i started working for this professor as a RA, and we got along well and sometimes discussed personal things - and i never quite knew how to let her know that i was, in fact, straight. ha. gave me sort of an understanding for some of the difficulties you face when you're gay!

jojo, i've used www.befrager.de in the past. it's free and quite easy to use. however, whereas you can make the questionnaire be fully in english, the interface which you use to create it and the handbook are in german. i know english is not your first language so maybe that is not a problem for you.

i've heard good things about www.unipark.de but i suspect it's the same problem about the language.

somebody on this forum has asked a similar question in the past and somebody has suggested a common, english-language web-questionnaire-tool - but i can't recall it. might be worth doing a search on the forum.

ok, so on this background:
- it took me nine years to get my masters degree.
- like you, i was distracted throughout the course of study, mainly by working/earning my living (but never suspended my studies or anything - nobody was checking on progress/attendance anyway).
- at the end, i just wanted to get it over with. so i sat down and wrote that thesis in 4 months, from scratch. it was supposed to take 1-2 years. (i was still working 1day/week for money)
- although at the time i thought it was rubbish - i just wanted to submit it by the deadline rather than waiting another 6 months - i got awarded the best grade.

so it's not exactly the same. but similar in some ways. i think it can be done. it's embarrasing to take so long, and i've been asked to explain that several times (also in job interviews), but i did - explained - and my explanations were always accepted. so you took a long time. but that's the past. now's the race for the deadline. you can do it!

lara, my undergrad/master's degree was in a different country with a different system, meaning, in short, that i never had any exams, from when i started at uni, until the end of my master's. mimimal study time was 4 years, average study time in my subject was 6.5 years. i was expected to follow some lectures and seminars, of my own choice, but nobody ever checked if you did or didn't. in order to progress, i had to write seminar papers (8000-10'000 words each) on topics of my own choice, and never got more feedback than "passed". this kind of unstructured studying is highly selective, more so than batteries of exams tend to be: less then 30% of the students ever made it to the final exams. towards the end i had to write a master's dissertation, without any supervision, it was expected to take 1-2 years, and had to include original research, mine turned out to be 170 pages. after this being accepted, i could sign up for the final exams, 4 months later.

thanks romersholm. you might be talking exactly about me

you say that a master's is probably too expensive. what is it you want to do, then? are you heading for a PhD or what? if you just want to add social stuff to your degree, in order to qualify for different jobs, the dipoma is the way to go. you get what is equivalent to a full degree in one year and pay less than for a masters. and: there are ways to finance a masters (loans etc.)

heya, if you are looking for a master's in english on the continent, start with the scandinavian countries. also, check out the erasmus-university rotterdam, holland. i suppose quite a few unis in german-speaking countries will let you submit your master's thesis in english, but courses will predominantly be in german. have a look at the ETH Zurich for example. check out iceland for cheap education (but depressively long nights in winter). be aware that most continental master's courses will be two years. so they may be cheaper, in terms of fees, even if you count the fees twice. but if you include the income you lose by not working for two rather than for one year, they are actually more expensive.

it's may! the month of love and romance.

will all be over in a few weeks

(bird)
(picnic)
(caravan)
(grimace)

just experimenting...

that said, are posts consisting of exclusively a smiley qualified? i mean, can someone win who only "smiley-ed", rather than "posted"?

oh.
thanks jouri, that's good to know.

i must say, coming to the UK from the "country of banks", i find how banks treat customers here, um, less than satisfactory. which is why i keep the bulk of my money on my swiss account. even though i can't go to a branch, i get better service, and even though i'm constantly using money "abroad", it costs me less...

yeah, different title is good for your CV. even if the content is the same.

but once you've got a number of items on your "talks and presentations" list, it won't really matter anymore, you'll probably end up not even mentioning that postgrad conference anymore.