This I Believe, Inc.

This I Believe Essays from WPSU Listeners

Displaying 1 to 25 of 295

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Michele, State College, PA: Last night I ate a salad of radishes, field greens, and asparagus. Â The ingredients never sat on a grocery store shelf. Less than 2 days ago they were still stuck in the ground. I`m one of thousands of Americans who are supporting local farms as a member of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. In exchange for a membership in Tait Farm, I get a weekly ``share`` of freshly picked pro...

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Mary, Snow Shoe, PA: I believe in drawing. I believe in drawing so you can be yourself. When I start off with a single blank piece of paper I make a masterpiece of my emotions. It doesn`t matter if I am mad or sad. I draw what I feel. Once I was really angry at my parents. Angrier than a bull. I stormed upstairs to my room. I found my pencil, crayons, markers, and my paper. I threw everything down on my desk and ...

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Ken, State College, PA: Today a dozen people died between the pages of a newspaper. They were sick, they died of old age, they were in accidents, they were murdered brutally, they killed each other. Today a hundred people died inside a television screen. They were actors, gored up for fun. Today two other people died inside a television screen. They were school students, murdered by a deranged classmate. Today a mil...

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Lucy, State College, PA: I believe that every human has an obligation in this world to act on behalf of the powerless. Once, when I was in ninth grade, at the same time when I hoped to break through the surface at graduation at least halfway cool, as well as get past the awkwardness of junior high, I was eating lunch in the school’s high-ceilinged cafeteria laughing at jokes and making jokes to impress my friends. As I...

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Danielle, Boalsburg, PA: The television shows I watched in middle school all had one thing in common: sibling rivalry. Lizzy McGuire’s little brother was always trying his best to embarrass her; Raven’s little brother demanded to be paid to help her with small favors; and Drake and Josh’s little sister delighted in tormenting her brothers to no end. You’d think that because I grew up with these shows, I too would desp...

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Carrie, State College, PA: My prevailing memory about China was the heat. The sun beat down mercilessly, furiously upon the earth as if it took some diabolical glee in scorching its inhabitants. The air hung limp and heavy; bloated with minuscule droplets of water suffocating it. The atmosphere seemed on the verge of bursting in any moment as if the heat and moisture would all escape in one giant, cool sigh. It was on one o...

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Regina, State College, PA: I believe in teddy bears. Almost every child has a consolation creature, whether itâ€™s a stuffed lion, soft blanket, or plastic Barbie; yet many children grow up and lose track of their Mr. Fluff. The comfort friend migrates toward the top shelf on the wooden bookcase or the dusty corner under the bed and becomes nothing but a neglected memory or pleasant decoration. As the creatures are negle...

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Sally, State College, PA: I believe in dogs. Dixie, the dog my siblings and I grew up with, was a beagle/springer spaniel mix and a mother hen to our family. The people she loved she loved with all of her doggy soul. Every day when my father came home from work, Dixie would race to the door, wiggling her butt like Chubby Checker doing the twist until the door opened and Dad knelt down to pet her. She cried as he said, â€...

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Nicole, Port Matilda, PA: I believe, as the old clichéd saying goes, that you cannot judge a book by its cover. Just like the majority of human beings out there, I tend to be pre-disposed to make assessments on someone’s character or lifestyle based on their outward appearance. Recently though, I have come to realize how truly detrimental this innate reaction toward other people can be. When I first realized one of my c...

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Rachel, State College, PA: I awoke this morning to a slight pulsing of my left big toe; think of the car next to you at the stoplight whose bass is way too loud and you feel the vibration sitting 20 feet away, that nagging feeling. The pulsing is the result of my clumsiness after dropping my skate--blade down-- onto it yesterday. I threw my covers off and swung my legs up into the air while still laying down so I could see ...

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Morgan, Pine Grove Mills, PA: ``Morgan, if you don`t finish your vegetables you won`t get any ice cream tonight.`` As a young child, I thought vegetables were gross and eating them would often ruin my day. I would sit and play with them on my plate, wishing I had a dog to feed them to. But my mom would always say those magic words. I would then lick my plate clean because eating ice cream each night was the highlight of my ...

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Sherry, State College, PA: I stood on the overcrowded bridge, elbows resting timidly on the rail, and stared goggle-eyed at the fantastic spectacle suspended ninety feet in mid-air above the cold, uninviting lake. To passersby, it was just a typical vehicle of safe terror - a roller coaster - tweaked into a unique attraction dubbed the ``Boston Tea Party.`` But to me, the intimidating jet black boat, hovering on twisting st...

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Eli, Port Matilda, PA: I believe meat is murder. I think it`s downright cruel and disgusting that people abuse, mutilate, and slaughter innocent animals just for their palatable pleasure, and that we turn a blind eye to the suffering of other living beings. Don`t get me wrong – I used to eat tons of livestock in the form of juicy burgers and down nuggets by the dozen. But at that time I never gave any thought to what, o...

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Harley, Duncansville, PA: I believe a moment lasts a life time. Moments can be remembered if you think they are very special to you. I have very many special times in my life; I can remember such times like when I was very little. This favorite moment of mine that I remember was from when I was young. I had remembered my mother saying to me that her Bobby needed help, that she was having money problems. So my mother, bro...

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DeAnna, Bellefonte, PA: Music is Awesome What is music and why does everyone listen to it? This question always come to mind when someone says, â€œlisten to this.â€ We as a culture have always had music, but my big question is who decides what music is. Is music just a bunch of noise that we find pleasurable? I believe that music is our way of expressing ourselves through an art form. Ther...

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Trey, Hollidaysburg, PA: The Outdoors From the stars in the sky to the animals that used to run where we have polluted the earth with our luxuries. This is what I believe is the outdoors. I myself love the outdoors and live there. There are some people that think the outdoors is just a place that should be turned into a mall or some sort of shopping complex. This land was only nature and its surroundings: no industries, ...

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Ember, Port Matilda, PA: This I believe that America is in the Cave. The Allegory of the Cave by Plato is something that describes how I live my life every day. I choose to leave the cave. I have always questioned everything; everyone should strive to ask all they can and continue to ask until the day they die. Americans, I have noticed have remained in the cave because to them ignorance is bliss. This is wrong if you do...

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Chris, State College, PA: I believe in protecting human dignity. For most of my professional life I have worked in health care. I have come to understand that providing high quality, cost-effective care is an important goal, but it is just one outcome of a more meaningful process. The true challenge for health care is protecting human dignity. It is a special calling and a special commitment to serve those who are sick and...

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William, Lock Haven, PA: I believe in the power of coffee. Iâ€™m certainly not talking of coffee with added sugar, half and half or milk; but straight up black coffee. I value coffee as black as the color of car oil changed after itâ€™s cycled for 3,000 miles. Once Iâ€™ve finished drinking this bitter confection of goodness; I want to see floating grains at the bottom of my cup. Nothing more gets this guy going in th...

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Faith, Port Matilda, PA: As a kid, I compared my friends’ family’s habits to my families’ habits. My friends drank whole milk. Straight. We drank whole milk, diluted with powdered milk. We called it half and half. My friends bought complete new Hallowe’en costumes. My sister and I cobbled ours together from odds and ends. I listened to friends list their Christmas presents and changed the subject when my turn to recit...

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Claudia, Alexandria, PA: I believe in second chances in life and building on the experiences we have been given to make us and those around us stronger through our lives. There is one night in my life that I know will stay with me for eternity. A chilly night in October of 2005 changed my life and many close to me forever. I was joyriding with my boyfriend down a country road when we lost control, crossed the median, and ...

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Christopher, University Park, PA: Growing up at home there was a often battle fought between my parents and me over the issue of making my bed in the morning. An after-breakfast check-in was a common routine in our house. My mom or dad would walk down the hall, check each room, call down and say. “Stop whatever it is you are doing and come and make your bed.” It was a chore that I simply did not like to do, and so I avoided it...

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Elaine, Port Matilda, PA: I’ll admit it; I didn’t like foreign language at first. My thoughts were that I could live in the U.S. forever, and not have to speak another language. I couldn’t have been any more naïve or wrong. It didn’t take me long to realize, I was making rash comments because I didn’t understand the true power language possesses. As human beings, language is what we are. As the world becomes more and mor...

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Charles, State College, PA: Back in the fifties, I was one of the few African-Americans at DeLaSalle Academy, A Catholic boys high school on the Southside of Chicago. One day our English teacher assigned us to present to the class either a poem or a Shakespearian monologue. I chose the dagger speech from MacBeth. We reading the play; it seemed like the path of least resistance. After memorizing it, for practice I started ...

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