Head Librarian Patricia Brown:
“When my sister was 14, she wanted to get her ears pierced, so of course I did too, so, I got [my first ones] when I was 11. And then, it became the fashion to have a third hole. And so, my sister wanted the third hole, but the earrings came in sets, so I got the third hole too.
When I was in college, a friend of mine for Halloween wanted to get his ear pierced. And it was the same thing still, they didn’t want to split the set, so I went with him and got the other one. So that gave me four.
The third hole was a woman I worked with in my twenties. She was in her forties and didn’t want to get, she always wanted to get her ears pierced, but she was afraid, so I said, okay, I’ll go first. So I got the third set.
These three are a little bit more sentimental. This one on this side up here, a friend of mine, my college roommate’s son was murdered and she has two daughters. And so to remember him I got this one with one daughter, and I got this one with another daughter, and the last one was also a commemoration,” said Brown.
Junior Maria Alfaro:
“Both my parents have tattoos and piercings, and growing up I wanted to be
like them. So that’s why all of the tattoos and piercings. I really love spiders, so I got a spider [tattoo]. And I got my cat’s name, Plum, because he passed away recently in December, and he was my first cat,” said Alfaro.
Assistant Principal Aaron Schneider:
“I started when I was 18 and have been getting them ever since, even as recently as a month ago.
Easily over 80 percent of my body [is covered] at least. There’s only a few spots you can see. From the neck up, and, you know, a couple other areas.
I think it was just something, as a kid, I just thought it was something neat to do. And then once I started, I just got hooked on it.
It was maybe just because of being in a conservative family growing up that I decided I didn’t want to be that conservative. And then it just kind of continued.
I have my daughter’s name and her birth date, in Hebrew on my wrist. Shortly after she was born, I got them. She’s twenty five, almost twenty six, so that’s a long time ago, but those are probably the most important ones [tattoos] to me.
For a while, when I used to be a runner, before all the injuries and everything that I had, I used to get tattoos, after marathons.
From the L.A. Marathon, I have the Hollywood sign, I have the, the national capital for the Marine Corps Marathon, I got the Statue of Liberty for New York City, the Disney Castle when I ran the Disney Marathon.
A couple other ones, I have a casino chip from running Vegas and then at one point, I actually made a Mandala of sneakers, running sneakers, and it’s the total number of marathons that I ran.
Many of them do [have meaning], some of them were just impulsive, fun things. Absolutely impulsive,” said Schneider.
Ninth-grade English teacher Elizabeth Englund:
“Sharks are my favorite animal, and they’ve always been so interesting to me. And Shark Week is my favorite time on Discovery Channel, also my grandparents used to live on Cape Cod, and my parents live there now and sharks are up there. So, I think it’s a good reminder of the place where my family lives, too,” said Englund.
