This sound recording was taken at 4:40 PM on the CMU side of the Morewood crosswalk.

As I was recording this journal, I intermittently alternated between listening normally with my ears, and listening through my headphones with the recorder. The first thing that stood out to me as I was recording, was how whenever I accidentally tapped recorder, the microphone would clearly pick up the impact and the vibrations. When you first start listening to the recording, you immediately notice the background noise of the cars. Of course, they are audible even when you aren't using a recorder, but I notice that you actively pay more attention to them while listening to the recording. As I was sitting there, I noticed that as time passed, I paid much less attention to the car noises, but as I listened to the recording, I still paid nearly equal attention to the car sounds unless there was a more interesting sound on top of the cars (such as a conversation, the beeping crosswalk sound, or squeaking car breaks). I was also surprised at how distinct everyone's footsteps are in the recording. Since it is outside, and there is much background noise with the cars, I didn't actually notice the footsteps (for the most part) when I was listening with my ears. Also, the recorder easily picked up conversations that were quite close to me, however, the conversations that were further away, I could actually hear better with my own ears.

 If you would like to listen to the recording, you may do so here.