Cat+Conroy's+Page

**This I Believe** By: Cat Conroy media type="file" key="This I Believe.mp3" width="360" height="18"

**I believe in recycling.**

In this day in age, it is very important to preserve our planet in every way possible. The ways in which we chose to treat our Earth not only reflect our own love for the environment, but also the love we have for future generations. If we do not choose to protect our planet now, consequences will perpetuate into the lives of our children and grandchildren in years and even decades to come.

Foremost, recycling is important because of the current issues our planet is facing when it comes to global warming. As we all know, landfills are getting filled up by the minute, and what better way to combat this seemingly inevitable pile-up than to have less trash? This may come across as an oddly simply solution; however, many people simply throw away recyclable items everyday because of sheer laziness! Whether it is due to the fact that they do not have the space for a recycling bin in their home, or that they simply think recycling isn’t necessary, they are in for a rude awakening! All that trash sitting in landfills gives off lots of various gases as it decomposes. Among these gases, high levels of carbon dioxide are put into the air. The Earth’s trees aren’t enough to combat the amount of this gas, and, to put it simply, it is leading to the depletion of our ozone layer! Many people chose not to believe the global warming theories, but they must open their eyes to the proof that has already been divulged in the changing weather patterns.

Recycling also promotes a cleaner, healthier world. Just think about how many empty plastic bottles and soda cans you see on the street walking home, or driving around everyday…probably hundreds! Part of the problem is that people cannot see themselves as being part of the greater good. Even I admit, it is hard to think of how it can really help in the grand scheme of things if I’m recycling and everyone else isn’t, but there lies the problem! If everyone thinks this way, then how will we ever get anywhere? In my home state of Massachusetts, we have a five-cent deposit tax on every recyclable item you can buy. From glass bottles, to cans, to plastic liter bottles, you are charged five extra cents per item. To reclaim these five cents, all you have to do is go to your local grocery store with your bottles and cans and turn them in, and wah-la! Money! I cannot think of any better way to reward and promote recycling, nor can I think of any reason why every state shouldn’t put this plan into action.

There you go. Recycling made simple. It is so important to recycle in order to keep our planet healthy. Even if you cannot convince yourself that recycling is beneficial for future generations, you should still feel compelled to do it for yourself. Wouldn’t you rather live in a world with less trash and more repurposing of the materials we have already made? It simply comes down to what makes sense: there is no need to remake when you can reuse.

 The hardest part about this project was the audio! After several goes of trying to bang it out all-in-one, from beginning to end, I realized that reading off my "This I Believe" in one fluid take was unrealistic. After this realization, I began to entertain the idea of reading it off in paragraph sections, which worked out rather well. After four tracks worth of reading, it was time to clean it up a little bit. I then began to go through, paragraph by paragraph, and examine the pauses in my waveform to make sure that the pauses that were there, were there for a reason and not just because I needed to catch my breath. Once I fixed the unnecessary pauses, I mixed down the four audio tracks and began looking for a song that would work well in the background. I ended up picking Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve. The only problem with this track was its vocals. I looked around and found a version of it on YouTube without the vocals and muted my vocal tracks and then recorded the music in GarageBand as I played it on my computer in YouTube. I noticed that one of the main points in my "This I Believe" was the last line, so I faded out the song so you could clearly hear it. As for the page design, I chose the picture off of Google after trying out several other photos that involved the more traditional recycling symbol, but these seemed too generic and dull. I wanted something that represented my cause well, and also reflected the fun and funky kind of person I am. So considering these things, I landed on these cute little recycling people that I thought worked well with my personality and text styling. I chose Comic Sans for my font because I felt it was clear and easy to read. I bolded and colored my title, as well as my "This I Believe" because I wanted to call attention to them and let readers know what my page was about up-front, without having to scroll down the page. Overall, I worked very hard on my audio as well as my written portion, and I hope everyone likes it! :)