25 by 25 revisit!

Well, it has been 4 months since I posted my 25 by 25 list. I thought I would take a moment to reflect on it and maybe change a few things to be more realistic!

25 by 25

1. Lose 50 lbs--well this semester was harsh and I am back to where I was when I started, but I am still going to do it!
2. Graduate--DONE!!
3. Finish 4 of the 12 knitting/crocheting projects I have started... um... ya...
4. Publish a research paper--I don't know if this is possible, but I will try. Not being in school is going to make it harder...
5. Go 10 days with out spending any money-- I need to track this one, I am sure I have done it though...
6. Go on a date with Brody once a month (4/12)--This one is easy!
7. Read my scriptures more regularly
8. Run a 5K in 30 minutes (in Nov I did one in 46 mins, March 47...)
9. Work out 3 times a week for 10 weeks straight--I am really good at working out once a week...
10. Attend the temple 10 times (1/10)--I need to be more committed to this and my scriptures
11. Have 100% visiting teach for the year (5/12)
12. Organize and keep organized my office--work in progress...
13. Take a box to Goodwill monthly (0/12)--um... We decided to have a garage sale instead...
14. Save $1500 (have $1500 in savings)
15. Deep clean the kitchen bi-monthly (0/6)--I hate cleaning the kitchen, but I love to bake...
16. Dust monthly (it is so dusty in Pullman!!) 
17. Finish Tree of Life afghan
18. Make a habit of getting up and out of bed for the day with the first alarm
19. Have a baby/get pregnant
20. Ski a Black slope (currently a moderate blue skier)
21. Put pictures in our picture frames--This one is going well! I only have 5 left!
22. Finish our wedding/honeymoon/anniversaries scrapbook
23. Keep the living/family room clean for a month--On the 7 of June this is done!
24. Keep a weekly journal--I should probably get a journal...
25. Kiss and tell Brody I love him, and a reason why DAILY--A lot harder than it sounds

Well, honestly I thought I would have completed more... But I have realigned my priorities and maybe in the next 4 months will cross off more!!

I thought it would be nice to post a post on what it is I have been doing with my life for my last 6 years in school... Then I realized I hadn't really done much, but some of the stuff I have done in my last semester is interesting, to me at least.

All students who want to graduate from WSU with a BS in Material Science and Engineering MUST complete a Senior Thesis project. We get to chose and advisor, a project, and then are let loose to figure it out on our own. I choose to work for my current advisor, and he asked if I was interesting in participating in the new big thing with Magnesium. Now, you all think Magnesium (Mg) is a highly volatile metal, and well it is. I caught some on fire, which is actually hard to do when it is solid....

My research goal was to increase the ductility, or to make it more malleable. I did not achieve that goal. It is the big new thing people want to replace Aluminum with Mg because it will decrease weight, and save fuel, and use consumers money! It is really hard to improve the ductility of Mg, which why it is the bug deal it is.

I though I would include some of the images and tell you about them. I like to talk about what I do, but it is a specific thing and I have a hard time explain it.

This image above is the internal structure of the as-received magnesium specimen I was working with. The different colors correspond to different grains, kind of like the grains in a piece of wood. The colors also signify which way the grain is oriented.

 This image is of one of the specimens after I completed my experiment. You can see that it looks very different from the previous one. There are different grains but they are all oriented the same way, and the grains are a lot smaller here. The orientation of this piece is good and bad. My experiment failed to do what I had planned but interesting phenomena was recorded, and new things about magnesium was learned.