Before the dig

I had imagined spending the week discovering things that nobody had seen for centuries. The induction sheet, with its rules about recording each layer, made that vision seem rather childish. I worried that my impatience would make me a poor volunteer. Yet the supervisor spoke about an ordinary fragment of tile as though the surrounding soil mattered as much as the object itself. I wanted to understand what she could see that I was missing. When she asked whether I was ready to begin, I said yes before reaching for the trowel.

In your own words, explain the writer's thoughts and feelings before beginning work on the dig.