One of my favorite parts of Ashokan was the blacksmithing because I felt free, I learned a lot, and I got really dirty (I love getting dirty). I felt free because I was not just having rules being told to me every minute. One thing that I learned was how to gauge heat, for example now I know that If your piece of metal is white and sparkling it is about to melt. I like getting dirty because… well I don’t know why I just do.

One thing that I didn’t like about ashkan was that before every meal we had to sit in the rec hall and wait for 10 minutes before every meal, while we were tired hungry and bored. We were bored because we had to sit and not talk. We were tired because we had just woken up, come from an activity or about to go to sleep and we were hungry because we were about to sit down to eat.