During my time here with Hawai'i 4-H, my purpose was everything listed in my position description, which was designed to assist me in my academic pursuits as well as assist the organization develop and grow. However, the majority of my time has been spent as an assistant to my boss, which includes grant writing, making charts, designing presentations, organizing files, taking notes in business meetings, etc. These activities are beneficial, don't get me wrong, but none of these activities lent themselves to be overly related or useful to my academic practicum. That's why I ultimately decided to try and design my capstone around training because, even though it is a very small portion of my responsibilities, it was the one thing I could connect to my education thus far.
One thing that has *really* irked me is the fact that there is a tremendous amount of material here that relates to my field of study! I mean, my cluster situation didn't stem from nothing. However, anything that could be useful to my practicum is not something that I get to be a part of (for various reasons)... for example, the current situation on Maui is prime material for a Leadership/Community/Coalition capstone, but Gary doesn't have the funding to fly me back and forth with him to Maui all the time. Another example is the conflict situation happening within the O'ahu Livestock Council - a prime situation to apply Conflict Transformation theory and Conflict Identity theory, but Gary handles that on his own because I wont be here long enough to make an impact and my involvement will just complicate things more. Or the continuation of the mediation and processing of the situation with the 4-H Foundation, which is prime material for both Social Justice in Intercultural Relations theory and Conflict Transformation theory, but Gary doesn't think to invite me to those meetings until after they have taken place and he comes to me and says "wow, you should've been at the meeting today because [such-and-such happened] and it probably would've fit in well with your schooling."
*Frustrated* I understand that Gary is a one-man show, and that me just being here and helping out in any capacity is a good thing, but there comes a point when the benefits don't match up to what you're putting into it, and I think we've already passed that mark. This is not all Gary's fault. I willingly take some of the blame. We didn't knock out the details of me being here before I arrived (partially because Gary isn't a huge detail oriented person, and because I was just excited to be coming to Hawai'i), and haven't made major efforts to sit down and figure out what I should be doing while I was here. Mainly, we've both just be going with the flow. I think that's why my responsibilities have been so random and scattered... Gary gives me stuff when he thinks of it. However, this leads to him treating me like I'm at his beck-and-call and I have to drop everything I'm doing to do something for him (even if it's something tiny that he could've done faster himself).
I'm not optimistic that we'll find that balance before I'm through here - I only have about a month and a half left. It's not the most horrible situation in the world though, so I'll make it through. The major downside is that this makes things more complicated for me academically. Cross your fingers, ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be an interesting process!
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