Take our advice concerning abbreviations on board-it might help you a lot in the future.

And don't pretend to be offended: honest advice can hurt

Some users here appear to have a "Don't hate the player, hate the game" attitude.

For me it's just bad manners, though..

If you start tricking people you'll loose, sooner or later.

My advice: get rid of your partner.

If he "insists now" to have a baby, the implications are twofold:

a) he does not understand you and your Phd demands

b) he is not interested

Apart from that I think it's a bad idea in every respect. Wait 'till you have finished the entire PhD or it might never be completed.

in your *

just don't forget to send me an invitation to your PhD graduation - in the year 2034..

I never said that and of course that's not the case.

However, changing methods is not the same as changing the supervisor, even in medical sciences. Part of the PhD learning process is to work with your supervisor even if things are not going smoothly. You cannot expect that all experiments work out properly so if you leave because of the first difficulties you will never get a PhD.

I don't care anyhow-it's not me who is falling in that trap.

Just go on (all of you) with your loser/complain about supervisor and hard life mentality but don't pretend that you know how reality is.

I'm out of this crappy forum anyway - goodbye and goodluck with your 20 attempts to get a PhD

Eva, that's a weird way of interpretation.

How do you know if the relationship is unhappy?
How do you know if it's not your own fault that the relationsship is not the way it should be?
How can you be certain that you get a new PhD with a better supervisor?

The truth is: at the beginning of everything, no matter if it's a new job or a PhD things are difficult. Many people quit at this stage and are never successful-only because they did not have the willpower to get through the difficult first 12 months.

A quitter is a quitter.

Sorry Ratty, but what you say makes no sense:

If you quit (no matter for what reasons or if you have intentions to start somewhere else again) than you ARE a quitter. It doesn't matter for what reasons you give up, if you give up then you do it.

Think about it and think twice before you take this step-always remember you have no guaruantee that the new supervisor will be better to work with (even if you like the topic), in fact things could become worse.

In other words: NEVER give up.

There is always a way to deal with unpleasant situations or problems, but the moment you give up you bury your dreams and it is unlikely that you'll ever try to achieve them again.

Sir Winston Churchill, 93 years old, at the end of his life, considered this the most important lesson of his life. That's why his speech was so short.

People got angry and some of them travelled large distances to hear him speak so they did not understand why he only said one sentence. But soon they realised that only this simple rule has made him successful-nothing else.

So you got the choice: stick with it and finish the job (nobody said it would be easy) or give up and be like millions of others who give up too easily and never achieve anything..you got the choice.

Sir Winston Churchill war bereits 93 Jahre alt, als er von einer Universitaet eingleaden wurde, einen Vortrag zu halten. Von weit her kamen Menschen, um den beruehmtesten Zeitgenossen ihres Landes zu hoeren.
Als Churchill den Vortragssaal betrat, waren tausende Menschen versammelt. Der Dekan der Universitaet stellte Churchill als den bedeutendsten lebenden Englaender vor, der im Begriff war, nun seine wichtigste Rede zu halten, gewissermassesn die Quintessenz seines langen Lebens. Unter grossem Applaus ging Churchill ans Podium. Und dann hielt er folgende Rede: "Geben Sie nie, nie, nie, nie auf."

well, it's still December!. And stop complaining like little girls..

I say your frequent use of abbreviations is completely ridiculous-grow up girl

I had my breakthrough only at the beginning of term 3! Before that: no progress and a lot of pain. So don't worry about results or slow progress in the first two terms.