Post-Training
Spent 2 days in training this week. I actually know what I'm supposed to be doing now - mostly - and it's nice.
Most of the time, though, I'm seesawing back and forth between feeling confident and excited (This will be the best Pre-Disaster Mitigation Plan evar! I'm going to meet so many people and get them so excited to be involved! Everyone is so helpful! I will be so useful!) to completely overwhelmed and uncertain (There are HOW many FEMA requirements for this plan? I have to give HOW many public presentations? I have to do HOW much documenting and reporting for the grant? I have to become competent in assessing HOW many different natural hazard risks? I have to negotiate interviews and wheedle support from HOW many conservative old-white-rancher-type men?)
I'm sure the result will be somewhere in the middle. I'm sure I'll do fine. That doesn't stop the feeling of falling, though, every time I think about how responsible I am for this big thing that will have lasting impact on this county. I'm not just some intern cranking around on a laptop in the corner (though I am in the corner, on a laptop) but a professional who has a job to do.
For all that I griped about not getting the local foods job, I think that this one will give me a lot more professional training - which I can then take to what may be a future local foods job. Or at least some kind of cool job in the nebulous future. Whenever that is. See, I've got a few ideas floating around in my brain... but that's for later.