(February 23, 2007) — Collars? Slacks? We’re more than that. This is Clark style; how we stand out in the crowd. This is how we break the mold and how our lives emulate art. Every single thing we do and every decision we make—from deciding what time to wake up in the morning, what to eat for breakfast, what to wear, and how to do our hair—has some deep psychological meaning behind it. So when a person consciously decides to get a hole with a piece of metal driven through some part of their body, one has to wonder exactly why. Do they do it to fit in? For attention? Or maybe purely for aesthetic reasons. Walking around Clark, one doesn’t usually see the throng of pierced and tattooed teenagers you would find in most other high schools. However, there are the occasional individuals who transcend ordinary expectations and choose to stand out when it comes to their appearance. Sophomore Christine Hooper once had a piercing on her bottom lip as well as a Monroe (a piercing in the area between the nose and your upper lip, modeled after Marylin Monroe’s famous mole). She cites simple “boredom” as the reason for deciding to get the piercings. “My friends and I wanted to do it together,” Hooper said. When asked if pain was a factor in making her choice, Hooper responded with a definite “no,” but then a few minutes later said she took them out partly because they hurt too much. “I want people to see it as an expression of how I feel,” she said, listing anger as a source. “And maybe some depression,” Hooper adds. “I want people to know I’m not pure and innocent in my head.” Another sophomore with a belly button piercing wishes to remain anonymous, but her reasons for getting the ring in her abdomen are more aesthetic. “It looks cool,” she said. “It just looks cute. [Getting] it hurt, but I would do it again.” She is also considering getting more piercings or even possibly a whole tattoo on her back. “I like Japanese art—dragons or flowers,” she said. “Like the kind Masumi [a Japanese model] has.” She also once had a cartilage piercing, but she took it out because it was infected.