Have I mentioned lately how bitter I am about my bug collection?

*WARNING* INSECTS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS POST. IF YOU HAVE A SOFT SPOT FOR INSECTS AND WON'T EVEN BRING YOURSELF TO KILL A MOSQUITO DO NOT PROCEED.(IF YOU SUFFER FROM THIS AILMENT I HAVE THE CURE, HIKE THE NORTH BOUNDARY TRAIL AND NEVER AGAIN WILL YOU HESITATE TO KILL A MOSQUITO. TRUST ME)

Allow me to paint you a picture if you will. I'm sitting in my bachelor suite apartment, in Olds, at my kitchen/bedroom/living room table, which also doubles as my desk, wielding a very sharp pin in one hand and an insect that has been "humanely" preserved in my freezer for over 3 months in my other hand, thinking to myself "how the hell am I going to pin this thing without stabbing it in the wrong spot, breaking off any valuable appendages, not making myself part of some insect shish kebob and still manage to keep a shred of my sanity when I know this is only one of a hundred insects I have to pin?" Don't even get me started on identifying them. I know this is not a very optimistic view but I have to admit at this point I am not very optimistic about this whole thing. Since the day we were told we would have to do this to graduate I've been cursing the project with every bug I've caught and mercilessly murdered from tossing it in my freezer or drowning it in alcohol. I've already managed to pin 3 ladybugs at wonky angles, pierced/broke off the leg of my dragonfly and stabbed a bug in the stomach to which it reacted by oozing some stomach contents. And to do all those things, in the poor way that I just did, took me several hours. To say the very least I am not happy about the whole thing and I can think of better ways to spend my Friday evenings than pinning bugs.
(Carol I don't know how you do it, people should bow down and kiss your feet for having the patience to be in your profession. For those of you who don't know, Carol has a degree in Entomology. Do you do house calls Carol? I'm sure we could get you here from Montreal somehow.)

So as you can tell by my rant, I'm just a little bitter about the whole bug collection thing. But now that I have bombarded you all once with my complaining about it, that will be all, until I do actually get pushed over the edge and go insane but then you won't hear from me anyways because I don't think they allow computers in those white padded rooms over at the Ponoka institute. I guess we'll find out.

P.S. I do have pictures of some of the bugs I pinned and tried to post them but it wasn't working. So I will try to post them next time for your viewing pleasure.