The Dissertation Vacation: Day 2

Apparently the time has come -- as mentioned in my Tale of two Universities, October promises to be replete with pain and suffering.  As a result, I am spending my vacation time to write my dissertation.  Starting yesterday I will be taking off 3-5 days per week to write in hopes of finishing on time.  Unfortunately, it is more convenient to write my dissertation in my office, as to avoid the distraction the two devils to the right bring...

Last year, I took two weeks vacation to study for my qual exam.  This year, I will be taking at least two weeks vacation to write this blasted paper... Next year, I plan to take some vacation to actually go on vacation.....

Recipe: Paleo Shepherd's Pie

Finally getting around to posting a recipe on here... I tried this one for the first time this past weekend and was quite pleased. Having not really been a fan of shepherd's pie when I was a child, this was pretty tasty, and I certainly didn't miss the potatoes.

Filling:
2 pounds of ground grass fed beef
0.5 lbs carrots, grated or chopped fine
0.5 lbs onion, grated or chopped fine
0.5 tablespoons of rosemary
0.5 tablespoons of thyme
garlic, minced or grated, to taste
Salt, to taste (I used sea salt that was hickory smoked)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Coconut oil

The topper:
2 12oz bags of cauliflower
2 teaspoons coconut oil (or butter if you are not as strict)
4 tablespoons of coconut milk

The instructions:

Steam (or microwave if it isn't a cardinal sin to you) your cauliflower until tender. You can even buy bags these days that steam in the microwave, as I did. Place the cauliflower in a food processor with a little salt and pepper, the coconut milk, and the coconut oil. Blend until smooth.

Preheat your oven to 400 F. While it preheats, start warming coconut oil in a pan over medium high heat to prepare the filling. Add the beef to the pan, crumbling it into small pieces as it cooks. Meanwhile, prepare your veggies.

Once the meat is cooked, add your veggies, herbs & garlic. Season again with salt and pepper as needed. Give your veggies time to get tender, about 6 minutes, and then pour into a glass baking dish.

Spread the cauliflower over the filling mixture, and place in your preheated oven. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let it stand for at least 5 minutes to cool. Slice and enjoy.

from nutritiondata.com:

Do note: As listed above this contains ~1g transfat/serving... But isn't transfat awful for us? Unfortunately, it is not that easy.

Grassfed cows supply yet another "good" fat to our diet---trans-vaccenic acid or TVA. Technically, TVA is classified as a "trans-fatty acid," a type of fat nutritionists tell us to avoid. However, TVA appears to behave differently from the man-made fat that comes from the hydrogenization of vegetable oil. Unlike the trans-fatty acids found in fast foods and margarine, TVA is not linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and may help inhibit tumor growth and obesity.

For parties interested in inflammation factors and estimated glycemic load...
IF: 186 (moderately anti-inflammatory)
EGL: 5

A Tale of Two (Univer)sities

I think that picture pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.

For a little background, I am currently employed at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. It was my first job after my Master's in Aerospace Engineering at Penn State. When I graduated from PSU I swore I was done school forever... after all, I crammed the whole degree into 1 year, and...it...was...awful.

Fast forward 8 months, and my job is so boring I can almost feel my braincells committing Seppuku in my skull. One of the first things I did after coming to the lab was write a few computer programs to automate the extremely boring tasks I had to do. As a result, I had to push a button and wait for said boring tasks to complete. In order to satiate my remaining, dedicated brain cells, I went back to school.

A little over 3 years ago I started my Doctorate in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. 2 years later, classes were done, and it was time for the Quals and my research. At this time, I changed groups at work to concentrate on my research which is in... ahem... Experimental Measurements of Pyrolysis Gas Chemistry Under the Influence of a Plasma Environment. While this year has been an absurdly painful, masochistic experience filled with the sweat and tears of shattered dreams... I am almost done, which means the defense, emasculation, and more pain... and then a degree. Perfect.

But wait! Rewind 6 months, I am bored with my lack of class and learning new things, so I have a brilliant idea... stay in school!! I started shopping around at universities for my next poison, the MBA. Well, I am now about a month into my MBA at University of Maryland, and it is going quite well. A foolish idea it was indeed to start this before finishing my doctorate, but it did save me from having to take the GMAT (they took my soon-to-expire GRE scores). All in all, the extra work hasn't been too bad, but here is a taste of what October has in store for me:

Oct 6 : final paper due in MBA
Oct 11 : preliminary defense of research (dry run, basically)
Oct 18 : Another final paper for MBA
Oct 17-21 : Finals for MBA
Oct 28 : Dissertation due.

Here is to the power of determination... and beer.