The return of the ant room maven

As some of you may have noticed, I have been absent on this blog for quite awhile now. The reasons are various and sundry but mostly involve the fact that I discovered some major problems with my master database and I think I have been going through the 5 stages of grieving:

Denial -- I'm sure this isn't that bad. Maybe just a couple of records gone awry. I'll just check my email first.... My desk is so disorganized. I'm going to clean out my desk so I can have a good environment to work in. Yeah, I really should figure out what is wrong with my database. But I think I'm coming down with a cold. Probably better if I take the day off and rest so I don't get really sick. It's important to take care of yourself! I will definitely deal with that whole database issue tomorrow.

Anger -- #@!!%!!!!!!!

Bargaining -- Perhaps I have some older version of the database that isn't messed up. Hmmm... not on my computer... maybe on one of these twelve million random disks that are sitting in my desk. No... maybe on my old laptop that died four years ago. Okay, that doesn't work. Perhaps I should spend several days making my old computer try to work. That seems reasonable. And so on.

Depression -- Everything is bad... (groan).... I'm going to have to re-identify every... single... specimen... (moan).... I'm just going to curl up in a little ball for awhile....

Acceptance -- Okay. I really just can't trust my database anymore. The only way to be sure of the data is to do a pin-by-pin inventory of every single specimen in my collection and match them up to its record in the database. If I don't see it in front of me (and I didn't send it off to another researcher) then it doesn't exist.

So that is what I have been doing. Which is a process both boring and stressful, the worst possible combination. The good news is, I am now officially done. HURRAY!