Final Post

I said a bittersweet goodbye to the APEX center this Wednesday.  At first, I admit that part of me was glad that I would no longer have to venture into the neighborhood surrounding APEX and spend my Wednesday afternoons cooped up at a computer when I could be enjoying the spring sunshine.  But at the same time, I knew it was incredibly selfish for me to feel that way.  I also realized that I’m going to miss volunteering there. I had to think about why I would miss it.  I spent the majority of my time there doing office work, and who would miss that? But it isn’t the office work that I’m going to miss; it’s the community at APEX, as well as the ability of helping those in need. 

As I walked out of the triple locked door at APEX, I felt something other than relief: it was guilt.  I was reminded of the outside sources we looked at for our first cluster convo of the semester. I remembered one of the poem’s discussing how people come in and try to help like knights in shining armor and then they leave after they’ve fulfilled their need to give to others.  They leave the less fortunate people they were helping behind, convincing themselves that they’ve done all they can and then they move on without looking back.  I realized that I don’t know want to be like that.  It took volunteering at APEX to make me realize that volunteering a few times isn’t enough.  A true volunteer is someone who makes a commitment to help others throughout his or her life. It is my goal to be that person. 

Looking back at my first blog post, I discovered that most of my original ideas about volunteering at APEX have changed completely. I thought I’d be using my previous experience volunteering at a Boys and Girls Club to help me connect with the kids at the center.  Instead, I barely had any encounters with them other than typing their names and ages into data sheets.  I also expected to relate the violence at APEX to the violence in Shakespeare’s plays.  I thought I would get more specific with the theme of violence throughout each visit and each blog post.  But I learned that real life doesn’t always work that way. If I had written a paper about violence in Shakespeare, I would have easily been able to connect the two.  But I could not manipulate the results of my service learning, and learning that was part of the experience.  I had to accept that my connections between service learning and Shakespeare would change every time I went to the center. 

From cleaning out cabinets to typing in numbers, my work at APEX was not what I had expected.  However, it was a valuable experience that I’m glad I got the chance to have.  I still do not know the concrete connection between the center and Shakespeare, but I have some ideas. If I had to pick one it would be the differences in language, culture, and society that I witnessed while volunteering.  Shakespeare’s plays also demonstrate these differences in his wide range of characters.  Though we live in a much later era than Shakespeare, many of his themes still exist today. The language and culture of different societies in today's world, as well as in Shakespeare's plays, varies due to factors such as class and location. This is just one of many possible connections between Shakespeare and APEX.