Paralyzed with Fear...

It all started with a commercial....

I saw a commercial to apply to be on the commission to redistrict California. It seemed simple enough! I voted for the redistricting to happen, and now they were opening the process and the decision to anyone who qualified. It seemed like an incredibly interesting and fulfilling thing to do.

So I applied. It turns out that the initial form you fill out is a PRELIMINARY application just to make sure you have no strong ties to either political party. That wasn't a problem. I don't know any politicians, nor have I ever contributed large sums of money to anyone's campaign. Super.

I'm an hispanic woman, which already makes me more diversified than the bulk of the applicants, and they claim to want diversity. Cool.

I "passed" their preliminary requirements and received an e-mail saying I can now complete step two of the application process. I must now write four (4!!) 500-word essays describing my qualifications in specific areas and the experience that I have to back up that assertion. In addition to this, I need three separate letters of recommendation collaborating on those assertions. OMG!

This is where my stomach dropped. I read the job description, and although it was incredibly long and complex that only served to make me want it more. The qualifications that they are looking for fit me to a "T", but I don't think I have any specific job experience that ever actually used any of these skills.

They want someone analytical, good with maps, can assign tasks to a staff, can read through a tremendous amount of legal jargon and technical data and make sense of it, can sort through statistics and make sense of them, can listen to arguments on fact and decide which would better suit the needs of California, and can appreciate the diversity that is California. I think I'm all of those things, but how do I prove that??

Hence the fear. Partly the fear is because I would LOVE to do this, and therefore want it badly. The rest is just the idea of trying to sell myself and my qualifications in a series of essays when I have no actual data to pull from.

I've written a business plan, and a thesis.... 2,000 words shouldn't be that scary, should it?