You must have had some ideas when you came up with your title.Expand on that.

doradorawis, you say the following: "I'm in my early thirties and have given up virtually everything to come to a foreign country for grad school. I can't go back with nothing to show off. Not even a master's degree. I feel so ashamed of myself."

You are also worried about the effect on your partner - presumably the partner who cheated on you? This is very odd. If my partner cheated on me she would be the very last person I would be worrying about inconveniencing.

This suggests you are being driven by what others think of you. This is a disastrous thing to do for your mental health.
I would recommend that you try and focus first on what you want from your life and ignore what others think, even if that means removing those people from your life if they won't respect your decisions. We all take wrong paths in life. It's part and parcel of trying to achieve the most meaningful life for ourselves. Being ashamed of taking a wrong path is ridiculous and really you need to cut that out immediately. It's a hugely damaging and worthless activity to be engaging in. Be proud of taking a chance when so many others fear to even try.

This is the first time I have ever heard of a 23 year old describing themselves as "old" :-D
Every single PhD student will be at least 23 years old and many of them will take part in all sorts of sporting activities within the uni.

I think your FOMO comment is very revealing.
It's preventing you remembering why you gave up a graduate job to go back to uni in the first place. What were your reasons for doing that?

I'm a bit confused. You've barely started the PhD having voluntarily moved away from girlfriend and friends but you are talking about how you can't get through it without them. You must have surely realised this is the situation you'd be in before you started.What has changed?

either way, 2 months is way too short a timeframe to be talking about falling behind in anything. You should set your expectations at somewhere around 12 months before worrying about that.

To all those using the fabulous sci-hub (for which all of us who believe in free distribution of publicly paid-for research results should be tremendously grateful), I would recommend you don't attempt accessing this through your university account as you could potentially cause considerable problems for your uni and yourself.

Fifthyear, yes this story will probably sound very familiar to anyone who does anything special like a PhD where, because of the level you are operating at, very few will understand what you are going through.

The common factor in your problems with others in your life is you. That would suggest the problem is on your side. You talk about what support they are failing to provide for you but I suspect you could turn that around and look at it from their perspective and reach the same conclusion. It could well be you who is withdrawing into yourself and becoming so wrapped up in your own world that it's all becoming about your needs and what you want. You should seriously consider whether this is really what is happening. Are you withdrawing into yourself and then blaming others in your life for not following after you?

The first thing you need to do is consider the above. If I am saying things which ring true then try giving something back to those who have supported you. They may no longer know how to reach you. They may be afraid of you flying off the handle and they might not know what to say to you. Give them an evening now and then where you don't talk about yourself and your PhD. See if that helps.

Secondly, you probably need to stop expecting other people to understand and care about your PhD. This is your particular career and you need to learn that only your view matters. Again turn this around. Are you showing sufficient care and interest in their lives and careers? If not you are in danger of holding others to a standard you are not meeting yourself.

Obviously we don't know each other and I don't know the intricacies of the relationships you are involved in and I may be off the mark with this but I hope there is some useful stuff in the above anyway.

Best of luck.

Wow.
I am very surprised to hear anyone talking about having enough material for a PhD after just 1 or 2 years but congratulations to all those who do. If I recall, 2 years was the historic duration for a PhD in the UK so it shouldn't surprise me too much).

Pretty impressive.

It is very common to find that second year is a struggle.
My second year was my worst.

I think you need to forget about what other people are doing. They are on a different path and career to you and you will all probably graduate anyway, regardless of differences. A career is a 40 year marathon not a 3 year PhD sprint.

If you had to start 1st year again what would you have done differently.
If the answer is nothing then you need to crack on with this phase.
If there are gaps then go and fix them.

If you stop worrying about the progress of others you might find you regain some of your momentum.

Good luck.

tru is calling this correctly for me too. It's the accumulation of worrying indicators which would put me off here.
You cannot possibly ignore these warning signs.
Not after what you have already be subjected to.

Presumably what you want is to export it as in CSV format (comma seperated format).
Can you do this from your package?

Cookyy2k, I think you are perfectly justifed in being anxious about your viva. Certainly having no journal articles could make things trickier than they would for someone with a few papers. Submitting without having comments on the thesis from your supervisor is potentially a serious problem as well.
Both of these would have me awake at night.

There is absolutely nothing you can do to change these so let me advise on what practical steps I would take now bearing in mind what I said above.

1) Read the thesis again and again. Add post-it corrections as you go. Your thesis copy should be stuffed with corrections you have spotted yourself. It impresses the examiner if you can say "Aha, yes I have spotted that and I can correct it."

2) Know your thesis inside out. Make sure you can defend what you did, why you did it and why your thesis is saying something new. Be thoroughly prepared to be told things like "tell me what is original about this work".

3) Try and see if any of your work is potentially publishable and press ahead with that now so that you have extra to add into the thesis if needed and that you have something to say during the viva - "I've done all this since you got my thesis."

4) Remember you have co-authorship on a patent. Do NOT downplay this. It's a publication. End of story.

5) Find a way to believe in and be proud of what you have done. You have done sat on your hands for 4 years doing bugger all so don't allow yourself to believe that.

Hope this helps.