Hopp til innhold

Kategori: phd

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til It's getting real…
I am so sorry I've been away for a week now, but Jon (my supervisor from Paris) was here, and we've been working more or less non stop. Don't get me wrong; I love these kinds of visits, and of course there's also been time for socialising after a long day at the office - what Jon calls work hard, play hard.
If we'd skipped the socialising bit I guess I would've had time for updating here, but the part where we're actually also friends, and not just colleagues is so important - I don't even really see that as an option. Therefore I'll repeat: I'm sorry I've been away, but I'm not really sorry for the choices I've made; we've made great progress and had a lot of fun at the same time.
play hard - Sunniva and Sunniva at Herregårdskroen <3
But to the title; yes, it's all getting real now... 
We went through the article that's almost finished, and even though we didn't finish it completely (which was sort ofa a goal), I feel really close now - and sure that I'll make this last part by myself 🙂
We worked on the gamma rays, and we did start the next article. 
And me and Jon went through the entire outline for my thesis, and he said something I took as a big compliment: I'm not at all worried about you writing this thing, you'll do a great job, I'm sure of it. Jon really is Mr. WorriedGuy, so when he says something like this, it really means a lot 🙂
I feel like from now on it may come more weeks like this one, where I actually won't have time for updating the blog. Wish it wasn't so, but then again it feels really great to take these leaps forward, towards the finishing line. It's still a lot to do, but tomorrow I hope to finish the last big "hole" in my article, and if Sunniva approves, we'll send it off to all the co-authors (that won't happen tomorrow, sine I know Sunniva'll have quite a lot of comments, and then I'll have to fix all those, but then maybe it's time...;) ).
Another thing that's getting real is Alexandra becoming a big girl; today she had her preschool visit at her school; in just two and a half months she'll be a real school girl. That's such a big leap, and somehow it feels surreal and fantastic and almost sad (not really sad, but "strange sad" that she's not a little girl anymore) - all at one time <3

7

Publisert 7 kommentarer til Forskningen er internasjonal! (rant)
Hver morgen, når klokken er seks, våkner vi at at radioen skrur seg på, og det er selvsagt P2 som gjelder hjemme hos oss - jeg digger P2 (#voksenpoeng)! 
Jeg er nesten alltid superfornøyd og imponert over kvaliteten på det som denne radiokanalen serverer mellom klokken 6 og 9, men i dag ble jeg småskuffet og litt irritert; det var nemlig en merkelig sak som handlet om at forskere publiserer "for lite" på norsk*. 
For å utdype denne Twitter-meldingen litt, og forklare hvorfor det ikke er et valg å publisere  for eksempel fysikk på norsk:
I akademia så er det publisering som gjelder: Publish or perish. Forskningen vår skal (selvsagt) være på et topp internasjonalt nivå! Vi må publisere, og vi må få artiklene våre fagfellevurdert. Forskningen vi driver med på instituttet vårt er også svært spisset, og vi er noen få i Norge som driver med det vi gjør**. Så en norsk journal der jeg feks kan publisere kjernefysikk fins ikke, og den hverken bør eller kan lages (den ville automatisk ha blitt på et MYE lavere nivå enn enhver internasjonalt anerkjent tidsskrift, og størsteparten av det eventuelle publikummet for denne journalen ville måtte jobbe med å lage/drifte denne).
Videre kunne ikke fagfellevurdering fungere fordi det ikke er nok fagfeller i Norge som kunne vurdert en artikkel skrevet på norsk. Hvis det er noen som faktisk har kompetanse til å forstå det som står i artikkelen så er de antageligvis medforfattere på den aktuelle artikkelen, hvis ikke vil det være noen som ikke kan fagfeltet, eller de kan fagfeltet, men ikke norsk... 
Til sist så ville vi ikke kunne samarbeide med de vi samarbeider med - internasjonaliseringen forsvinner (de kan ikke være med oss, og vi kan ikke være med dem); vi gjør mange eksperimenter på andre kjernefysiklabber rundt omkring i verden - feks i USA, Sør-Afrika, Frankrike, og Japan. Disse eksperimentene resulteter i artikler, som vi samarbeider om å skrive. Det blir fryktelig vanskelig å skrive disse sammen med forskere som ikke snakker norsk - hvis vi er tre norske og 15 fra diverse land rundt omkring i verden (de andre forskerne må jo tross alt kunne forstå teksten de er medforfattere på, ellers ville det vi drev med vært mildt sagt grovt uetisk), og av samme grunn så kunne ikke vi være med på artikler skrevet på fransk, tysk, eller japansk (vi kunne vært med på den engelske/amerikanske, da, men det er kanskje ikke helt rettferdig hvis vi skal få masse ut av samarbeid med dem, men de skal ikke få noe ut av samarbied med oss - eller kanskje vi bare skal forvente at de lærer seg norsk?)
Publish or perish gjelder overalt i akademia, så det må kunne være ganske sannsynlig at samarbeid resulterer i artikler, ellers forsvinner mye av insentivene for å bruke tid på dette.
Vi bør vel kanskje ikke skrote internasjonalt samarbeid, fagfellevurdering og nivå, bare for å få artikler på norsk...
At dette i det hele tatt er en diskusjon (slik den ble lagt frem på radioen i dag tidlig) er bare rart og feil. Vi publiserer SELVSAGT ikke på norsk, for det er hverken mulig eller ønskelig. Forskningen er internasjonal, og da må den også deles med internasjonale forskere på et språk som er internasjonalt forståelig. (Vi kan godt være litt triste over at norsk ikke er et internasjonalt språk, men sånn er det nå en gang, da...)
For meg så viste denne diskusjonen noe som kunne minne om en manglende innsikt i mye av forskningen som foregår på univeristetene - hvis man tror at veldig mange av oss bare kunne ha publisert på norsk istedetfor på engelsk, så er du i mine øyne omtrent ikke meningsberettiget.
Grunnen til at forskningen vi gjør er utilgjengelig for folk generelt er ærlig talt ikke at den er publisert på engelsk. Vitenskapelige artikler er ikke formidling.  Jeg tør faktisk påstå at forstår du faget, så forstår du engelsken. 
Her er noen eksempler på artikler jeg er medforfatter på: 
Experimentally constrained (p, γ)89Y and (n, γ)89Y reaction rates relevant to the p-process nucleosynthesis (12 forfattere som ikke forstår norsk - som ikke kunne ha vært med, og som i prinsippet gjør at artikkelen ikke kunne ha eksistert)

Study of the 238U(d,p) surrogate reaction via the simultaneous measurement ofgamma-decay and fission probabilities (5 norske forfattere - vi kunne ikke ha vært med på denne hvis den ble skrevet på hovedforfatteren sitt morsmål, men heldigvis publiserer de på engelsk også i Frankrike)
Experimental level densities of atomic nuclei (16 forfattere som ikke forstår norsk - som ikke kunne ha bidratt til det endelige resultatet). Denne er jo til og med nesten populær i sin fremstilling. Abstractet lyder:

It is almost 80 years since Hans Bethe described the level density as a non-interacting gas of protons and neutrons. In all these years, experimental data were interpreted within this picture of a fermionic gas. However, the renewed interest of measuring level density using various techniques calls for a revision of this description. In particular, the wealth of nuclear level densities measured with the Oslo method favors the constant-temperature level density over the Fermi-gas picture. From the basis of experimental data, we demonstrate that nuclei exhibit a constant-temperature level density behavior for all mass regions and at least up to the neutron threshold.

La meg være litt grei, og gjøre en rask oversettelse av dette abstractet:

Det er nesten 80 år siden Hans Bethe beskrev nivåtettheten som en ikke-vekselvirkende gass av protoner og nøytroner. Siden da har alle eksperimentelle data blitt tolket i dette bildet av en fermion-gass. Dog har den fornyede interessen for å måle nivåtettheten ved å bruke forskjellige teknikker gjort at denne beskrivelsen må revurderes. Spesielt så favoriserer det vellet av nivåtettheter målt med Oslometoden konstant temperatur-nivåtettheten fremfor fermigass-bildet. Med bakgrunn i eksperimentelle data de
monstrerer vi her at kjerner viser en konstant temperatur-nivåtetthetsoppførsel i alle masseregioner, og i alle fall opp til nøytron-bindingsenergien.

Jeg brenner for formidling, og jeg skulle gjerne hørt en diskusjon som handlet om hvordan forskningen skal gjøres tilgjengelig for andre enn forskerne, men det problemet med formidling er ikke at vi publiserer på engelsk.
Hadde det vært en diskusjon om formidling; at det formidles for lite på norsk, og nå må vi gjøre noe for å belønne formidling på norsk, så er jeg også helt for diskusjonen. Men det var altså snakk om publisering, og da blir det hele mer eller mindre tragikomisk.
--------------------------------------------------
*Det er klart, dersom spørsmålet er om forskning som handler om spesifikke norske forhold, og hovedsakelig er av interesse for nordmenn, så er det jo ganske merkelig å publisere på engelsk (vi er alle, eller i alle fall de aller fleste av oss, selvsagt bedre i vårt eget morsmål, enn i engelsk, og dermed vil antageligvis også det vi skriver få en litt høyere språklig kvalitet på eget morsmål), men slik det ble lagt frem så handlet det generelt om at forskere publiserer på engelsk.
**For å illustrere: Anders driver også med PhD i fysikk, og selv om vi da har ekstremt mye av den samme bakgrunnen, og snakker veldig mye sammen og forklarer for hverandre, så er det jeg kan si om hans forsknng ca dette: han programmerer masse også holder han på med noe molekyler, blant annet silikat. Å lese en artikkel i hans fagfelt vil være ekstremt krevende for meg - om ikke umulig...

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Thursday blues

- bad conscience (I spend too little time on my degree, and too much time procrastinating)
- procrastinating
- writing for an hour as I feel bad (my conscience bugging me since I procrastinated when I got to the University, instead of writing)
- searching the University's web pages for a template for my thesis - turns out it doesn't seem to exist (help?!), but I found myself as poster-girl on the frontpage of the phd education. Lol.

- going to the MNKOM lunch talk, to listen to all the science communication students (as I was also making some notes from an article  #multitasking)
- finding a template for master's thesises - works for now
- starting cleaning up and putting stuff I've written before into the template - looking kind of good
- writing a short introduction to my articles (that the thesis will be based on)
- thinking I know which order to put things in my thesis (which is supposed to sew the different articles together)...I've changed my mind several times, tough, so who knows what I'll end up with

And now I'm finally at home, drinking a glass of white wine and snacking on some kale chips I made (soooo good <3 ), waiting for Anders to get home again. He's currently in the air, and doesn't land at Gardermoen before midnight - so I might go to sleep before he gets here, since I'm quite sure I'll wake up the moment he opens the door here anyway 🙂
Hope you have great Thursday evening everyone! See you tomorrow.

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Preparing for PhD Day!
This is a blogpost there are good reasons why I shouldn't write...but I do it anyway, and if you are a PhD candidate here at the University, you should definitely keep on reading (if you're not, you should at least read the end of this blogpost):
On June 10th, the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and the Science Library are arranging PhD Day, and all PhD candidates at the Faculty are invited to participate in the Poster session (aka Poster competition). There's a 10 000 NOK prize for the best poster, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to win it... However, I also really want all PhD candidates here at the Faculty to know about this day, and this poster competition; it's more fun the more we are, and it's more fun in winning if there's a real competition 😉 

Deadline for submitting an abstract for the competition is one week from now (May 9th). I'm pretty sure that if you actually try making an abstract you will be accepted to the Poster session, and that it's not like for a conference where it's normally a bigger chance of rejection than being allowed to make a poster or give talk... If your abstract is accepted, remember that your poster will be on display for students, fellow PhD candidates, professors, faculty members, and possible future employers on PhD Day 2016.
This is the third year that the Faculty and the Science Library are arranging this day, but for some reason, this is the first time I'm actually planning on participating in all that happens (Poster competition): 
The poster is supposed to be more popular than if it was for a pure, nuclear physics conference; this day is, after all, for all of us at the Faculty, and not just nuclear physicists, but that's what I think is the most fun to prepare anyway - perfect for me, in other words <3 What I've also realized is that even thought this is a popularization of my research, the story that I'm telling is still the same as when I'm going to the ND16 conference in September, and preparing this for PhD Day is actually forcing myself to really try to find good answers to these important questions: 

what is my story?
why are my results interesting?
what are the important things that we did?

I think (hope!) making this popular poster will contribute to making my talk at the conference better...:)

I've spent most of today reading about "prompt fission gamma rays", which is the topic of my poster (planning on finishing, and submitting, my abstract tomorrow). It maaaaay be that I'm calling gamma radiation for nuclear sweat … 😀 Don’t know with you, but I mean, if a nucleus is excited, or “hot” (as my nucleus is), it cools by emitting gamma rays - sounds like sweat to me 😉

Read EVERYTHING about PhD day HERE

Even if you're not a PhD student, and not participating in the poster competition, you should come to the Science Library this day: You can see all the posters, and hopefully learn about all the different, cool things that people are studying at our University, and you can vote for which poster should win the audience best prize (2000,-). The poster session starts at 11.
Then, from 3 it's the most awesome BBQ (food from Strøm Larsen), the bar opens, and at 3:30 it's "Smashing Physics: news from the energy frontier", by Jon Butterworth. This should be good!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

PS: My poster will be pink; I see no reason why a scientific poster couldn't be pink <3

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Abstract accepted! (#phdlife)

The week after Easter, just before we went on vacation, I got a very nice email. It read as follows:

Subject: ND 2016 - Decision on your abstract
Dear Mrs. Rose,
The organizers are pleased to note that your abstract ND/793 was accepted as a regular contribution to the conference. The slot allocated to your contribution is 20 minutes: 15 minutes for your presentation and 5 minutes for questions.
To confirm your attendance please complete at your earliest possible convenience your full registration for the conference at www.nd2016.eu (General Information, drop-down menu: Registration). You will be entitled to submit a regular paper for the proceedings.
Yours sincerely,
Arjan Plompen,
On behalf of the Organizing Committee

I have quite some work to do before this, but now I just definitely have to do it; so it's a good thing 🙂 The abstract I submitted for the International Conference on NUCLEAR DATA FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY is this:


Prompt fission gamma ray emission from the (d,p)-induced fission of 233U

Prompt fission gamma-ray spectra have been measured in an experiment at the Oslo Cyclotron Laboratory (OCL), using a 12.5 MeV deuteron beam on a 233U target.Charged particles were recorded with the SiRi particle telescope, in coincidence with γ-radiation in the CACTUS γ-detector system,  and fission fragments were recorded with the NIFF PPAC-detectors .  CACTUS consists of 28 5”5” NaI(Tl) crystals,  mounted on a spherical frame;  with a total efficiency of 15%.

The (d,pf) reaction has been used as a “surrogate” reaction for the (n, f) reaction, and characteristics such as the prompt fission gamma ray spectra, and the γ multiplicity have been studied. Both characteristics have been extracted as functions of excitation energy, in the energy range 5-10 MeV, in the fissioning nucleus. The results are compared to a similar experiment from the OCL on the 239Pu isotope.

The setup enables us to study the nuclear level density and the gamma ray strength function, and these properties have also been extracted for the 234U isotope, from the same experiment. These results will also be presented.​



It will be a nice experience where I'll be presenting basically half of the results from my PhD - which is a good exercise for the thesis defence that will (hopefully) be a couple of months after this conference...
Writing this blogpost actually reminded me that I haven't registered to the conference yet - on the TODO-list! Brussels, here I come! (Ok, not yet, but in September, I'll be there 🙂 )

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Science doesn't know everything…
...that's why we are still doing science! 
If we knew (or thought we knew) everything, we would've stopped - and I'm pretty sure the government wouldn't have used any money on universities or anything.
For example: where does uranium come from? 
We don't know!
I work with uranium (uranium-233 and -234 in particular), and we know it exist here on Earth, but how was it created in the first place? Actually there are MANY elements we don't know how got here - like silver and gold. But we know they exist, and we get better and better models and theories for how it happened <3 (One theory is that the heaviest elements here on Earth are created when two neutron stars collide - really cool and amazing!)
I work mostly with understanding everything about what goes on with my precious uranium in a fuel that's based on thorium (thorium is turned into uranium in a nuclear reactor; therefore I care about the uranium, even though the overall topic of my research is sort of thorium fuels), not really how it was created out there in Space, but the cool thing is that a deeper understanding of the uranium nucleus may also let us know a little bit more about how uranium has been created. 
The bigger picture is how thorium fuels behave, and how uranium is created - which my work will give no real answer to; but hopefully my PhD will eventually give us one more tiny mini piece in the total, gigantic science puzzle. You, know - baby steps. No giant leaps here 😉
Today I've been reading about gamma radiation and stuff for several hours, before I went to a great talk about nuclear astrophysics (by one of my PhD colleagues - Jørgen), before I went back to my office to punch numbers into a table, and look for a specific plotting program I haven't worked on for a couple of weeks (I eventually found it, so tomorrow will be plotting day), and suddenly it's almost 7'clock.
I realised I actually think of gamma radiation a little bit like sweat. Since when you heat a nucleus, it gets rid of that extra energy by sending off gamma rays - the nucleus sweats 😀 And we study the nucleus by studying its sweat; it's a little bit like we're trying to figure out how it was heated by looking carefully at the sweat. And eventually this may tell us more about the Universe...
--------------------------------------------------
PS: I'm glad I spend more time wondering about how uranium and other heavy elements were created, than when it became "acceptable" for women not to wear a bra - like some bloggers do. Guess we're different...

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Goals
We just git back to work after the Easter holiday, but next week we're actually going on vacation again... On Sunday morning we're off to Tenerife, to see the sun and feel some warmth, but if I'm going to have a chance to relax (I realised last week that the Easter holiday and this vacation was only one week apart, and I'm not exactly feeling great about it - especially regarding yesterdays post about the panic phase of the PhD work) I need to finish some stuff here at work. My goals before Saturday therefore are:
  1. Finish my article draft and send it off to Supervisor Jon; so that we can discuss it when I come back again (and hopefully also he won't think I'm stupid and lazy)
  2. Finish the curve fitting of my analysis: these results are important in the article I'm starting to finish, and they will be used for further analysis - see goal 3.
  3. Use the curve fitting results from goal 2. to calculate** stuff (this will go into another article <3)
  4. Refresh my memory of the fission gamma ray part of the uranium experiment, and reply to an e-mail about this. (If I'm really good, I'll also make some drafts of some figures from this analysis, that will go into a third article 😀 ) 
And I only have today and tomorrow to do it. I've therefore "locked" my self into the University Library, where I can work without being interrupted - my problem is that I'm too social; I love <3 to chat and have coffee breaks and all that, but sometimes it's just better to be anti social in the library 😉
Hope you all have a great day!
always helps to write the article draft in the style of the journal you want to publish it in - all the sudden it almost feels real 😛
**For the extremely interested reader, we're using results from our experiments here at our lab in Oslo to calculate so-called cross-sections: The cross-section is sort of the probability of a nucleus to behave in a certain way when it's bombarded with a certain type of particle, with a certain energy. In my case the nucleus is uranium-233 (one of the most important nuclei in thorium based nuclear fuels), the particle it's being bombarded with is a neutron (it could be protons, or gammas, or alpha particles, or whatever), and I want to know more about the probability that the uranium nucleus will absorb this neutron.

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Similarities between pregnancy and working on your phd
This other day, when I was having lunch with some other lovely physics ladies, and we were talking about finishing of the PhD and especially the THESIS DEFENCE (OMG!), I panicked a bit, thought I had to be able to talk about shell model calculations in my PhD defence (which I know nothing about!) and everything... I realised that working an a PhD is kind of similar to being pregnant:

For a long time I've just been like oh it's wonderful to be a scientist, I do science and it's soooo awesome, and I'm on my way to become a PhD in nuclear physics *heart heart heart*


I've more or less felt like this... (cartoon from xkcd.com)


Pretty much like the first 7 months of pregnancy, when it's more or less like oh it's wonderful to be pregnant, I'm growing a baby in my tummy and I'm glowing at the same time, and I'm on my way to become a mother *heart heart heart*


Me back in 2010 - starting to get big




Then suddenly: point of no return, and only the really hard and horrible part left! *panic panic panic*
You realise that you actually have to give birth, and it's scary, and you don't want to, and you don't think you can... And it's no fun anymore. Definitely too late to go back!
Or when there's not much time left (December is the very last month I'll receive any salary from the University, so it would be sort of nice to be finished at leas by then) before you have to hand in your PhD thesis. And to do that you actually have to write these things that have to be published in real scientific papers (Wikipedia can't help you now), and if you manage that you have to defend everything - in front of an audience, and they will ask about everything, and maybe even be mean :/ And it's no fun anymore. And you can't go back after so many years "publicly" working on a PhD!

I guess it's only the hard part left. 
I did manage the last, hard part of being pregnant, though, and it all went really well - also the time after <3
But I do feel like it will be extremely nice when this is all over, and I can look back and say I did it! (Hopefully...#fingerscrossed)

I did it, and now she's 6 years and awesome <3



Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Never give up
So it turned out I was looking at the wrong output from my Talys nuclear reactions simulations , of what happens when a uranium-233 nucleus is being bombarded with neutrons with all kinds of energies. (Talys is a program for simulating lots of types of nuclear reactions; it's free, online, and everyone can check it out here, if they want to 🙂 ). When you run a simulation (or 60, like I have) you get a folder with lots of different files, and silly me was looking at the wrong file... "Of course": the file I needed to plot wasn't the "totalxs.tot", but the "rp092234.tot". If I'd read the manual more closely this would have been clear, but it's more than 500 pages. Still on my to do list to read it, though.

This a typical research story (at least in my world) - and, oh, how I hate it!

Yes, it does feel sort of good when you realise why things aren't working, but it's not like I've solved a great problem, I just happened to be an idiot, looking at the wrong output file (and, of course, it's nice to not be an idiot, but the solving this is'n taking me big leaps forward - I'm just not an idiot right now).
I guess I just have to repeat to myself: Never give up.

no matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up, and never give up!

Publisert Legg igjen en kommentar til Working your ass off dinner – "Mexican" style
Remember my last post about #workingyourassoff-dinner? My super-easy super-fast Thai-reipe? If not, you can check it out HERE.
Well, life here is quite busy, as always these days (yesterday started at quarter past four in the morning, since I was going to Stavanger to give two talks, and then back to Oslo to go to a celebration of the international women's day - I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow when i finally got to bed last night), so there is no less need for quick and tasty recipes - but the same Thai all the time is a little bit boring... So a couple of days ago I made another #workingyourassoff-dinner, but this time more Mexican inspired.

Before I share the recipe with you, let me just refresh the rules for a real #workingyourassoff-recipe:


The recipe for working your ass off simple chili con carne:

You need:

  • green beens (frozen ones - I love these, and use them in all my #wokringyourassoff-dishes)
  • leek (prechopped, from the freezer)
  • mushroom - I use champingnon (prechopped, from the freezer)
  • meat - this time I happened to have fresh, minced meat, but it's of course possible to use frozen
  • Tabasco sauce - the one with chipotle is just perfection <3 (I also have a lot of different chili sauces, like normal Tabasco, habanero Tabasco, plus some others; and I use a little bit of everything to get the perfect taste, but I can really recommend the chipotle!)
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • chopped, canned tomatoes
  • cinnamon
  • butter
  • salt and pepper
  • (if you happen to have some old wine, it's perfect to put it in the pot)
You can also add peppers (all colours), tomatoes that are not canned, eggplant, squash (the peppers and the eggplants taste awesome if you chop them, put them in a ovenproof dish, pour some olive oil on top, and grill them in the oven - then put them in the pot. This of course takes more time, so then it's not longer a real #workingyourassoff dinner anymore ;)). I'm personally not that fond of canned beans, but if you like it, it's of course perfect to add. They're cheap, and since they're canned, you can store them forever before you find out that you want to make a chili con carne.
these ziploc bags from IKEA are perfect <3

the perfect Tabasco for a Mexican inspired pot of chili <3<3<3
a glass of wine is always a good idea (maybe unless you're driving, or you're pregnant, or you're 16 😉 )

 Do:

Put some flavourless oil, like rapeseed oil, in a pot. When it's real hot, add the meat and a table spoon of butter (mmm, butter <3). Stir.
When the meat is fried, add the leeks and the mushrooms. Make sure it doesn't get burned by stirring 😉

Then add the canned tomatoes. Th
is time I used two cans, since I wanted everything to be more "soupy" and less dry. Add a little cinnamon - maybe just half a teaspoon. Add the Tabasco, and/or other chili sauces. I like it spicy, so I use quite a lot - the secret is just to taste, add more, taste, add more, or not, until it's perfect for your taste 🙂 Let everything boil for a while.
Add extra virgin olive oil (I use a lot - olive oil <3) and green beans. It's all ready when the green beens are warm. It only takes a couple of minutes.
Serve it with rice or bread, or just eat it as it it - which is what I do; with salt, pepper, and some sour cream on top.
This is of course not my "very best perfect fantastic gourmet"-recipe for Mexican food, but the very easiest and fastest way (I can think of) to do it. 
It's quick, it's simple, and it's quite tasty - what you need when you're busy working your ass off <3 

I'm not sure why he looked like this - but, hey, he's a guy - you can't understand why they do everything they do 😛 (He was actually very happy about the food <3 )