Hi my name is Ashlyn. I am a seventh grader at Santa Barbara Middle School. I am a Reporter for the “Power of Story” team.

My favorite thing to do is figure skate. I love that in the rink, it’s like a whole different climate. It’s over 20 degrees colder inside the rink, which feels amazing on a hot day. One of the reasons I chose figure skating is because I love the cold! Another reason is that I love flying through the air, and feeling the cold wind brush past me when I go really fast. Figure skating just completes me and I look forward to skating each time. A few things I don’t like about figure skating is that the closest rink is in Oxnard, which is about 45 minutes away from my house (over an hour when there’s traffic), and that when you fall in skating, it can really hurt and when you land on the ice it’s freezing! In my spare time, I also like to dance, surf, bake and mountain bike.

The Hunger Games and Catching Fire really engaged me. The films were both really suspenseful and kept me on my toes wondering what was going to happen next. Jennifer Lawrence was such an amazing actress in those films. I really felt like I was in her shoes. My eyes started to tear up in the scene where Rue dies because Jennifer was so emotional and really expressed herself in that scene. I am really looking forward to interviewing people in the Film Festival and hearing about their stories and perspectives. I am also looking forward to watching all the films we get to see during the Film Festival that aren’t even out in theaters. A few people I would love to meet and interview are Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Chris Martin and the rest of Coldplay. Hopefully, when I am older I’ll become an interviewer and I can interview or meet all of those people!

I was really impressed by the Brad Pitt interview because Brad Pitt was very nice and welcoming and he seemed very comfortable and relaxed around Harrison and Eliana. I was impressed because Harrison and Eliana did not seem nervous at all and very relaxed just like Brad Pitt was. Hopefully I will look as relaxed on camera as they all were.

I don’t want to be known as just the figure skater, I want to be remembered for more than that. I want to be remembered for helping people when they needed help, being an excellent reporter in Teen Press and being a great friend to everybody, and, I guess a figure skater too. :)