 |
Trisha Krauss
|
the goal: get
Ethiopian food in Berkeley. The outcome: some stabbing
pain, a little blood, one friend’s
fainting spell and a hole in my nose.
I am not a body-piercing
fanatic. I rarely wear earrings
and am conservative in dress and appearance. But
with the Ethiopian restaurant closed for remodeling, I
made
a quick
decision. I went down the street to Zebra, a body-piercing
and tattoo parlor on Telegraph Avenue.
“Is that the smallest one you have?” I nervously
asked the woman behind the counter. If it were any smaller,
she said, it would slip through my nose. “It” was
a one-millimeter sphere at the end of an inch-long
wire bent in half.
The whole idea of piercing my nose came
to me six months
into my freshman year and two weeks before the Berkeley
excursion. I had interviewed a woman from Sierra
Leone for a research
paper. Intrigued by the simple beauty and elegance
of the stud in her nose, I began to contemplate getting
one myself.
I wanted to change my appearance in some surprising
way. A pierced nose seemed the perfect solution.
It added visual flavor to my roll-out-of-bed-and-make-it-to-class-on-time
look. And neither my friends nor my family expected
the addition.
Maybe I did it for shock value, maybe to reinforce
my independence or maybe to annoy my little sister.
In any
case, I did it.
At home over spring break, my nose and I were
subjected
to a plethora of questions. Mom wanted to know if the
scene of the crime was sterile and respectable. My
little sister
wanted to know why it wasn’t okay for her to do the
same. Dad quietly accepted the third hole. My friends’ reactions
were similarly mixed—one said he would punch me for
doing something so ridiculous, while others were inspired
to ponder piercings of their own. Faced with this gamut
of responses, I couldn’t help but wonder—what
had Stanford done to me?
It’s been a year and a half
now, and I tend to forget about the surgical steel wire in
the right side of
my snout. I’m reminded of its presence only by curious
onlookers. They ask, “Did it hurt?” (yes) and “How
do you blow your nose?” (gently, but really no differently).
Family members quip, “What’s next, a tattoo?” (doubtful—I
don’t like needles).
But even though it feels at home
on my nose, the little sphere has kept me thinking.
I worry about the message
I send to people who meet me for the first time.
Do I appear radical, irresponsible or unprofessional?
Concerned, I sometimes
remove the silver ball for job interviews, turn to
the right to hide it or blush when people comment
on it.
During
these fleeting moments of discomfort, the question—what has Stanford
done to me?—returns. But the answers are
quite reassuring.
Since the piercing, my life has flourished
in many ways. I discovered my passion for journalism
while writing for the Daily and interning at a hometown
paper.
I have become
more confident speaking in class, even eager to share
my opinions. I met an amazing adviser who shares my
passion
for human rights and encouraged me to get involved
in a Law
School research project. I’ve mentored a second-grader
who gets just as excited about reading a book by himself
as he does wondering how my facial accessory fits in
my nose. And now I’m studying in Florence, a longtime
dream.
In short, Stanford has given me self-knowledge, more
confidence, an even keener curiosity and the desire
to try nearly everything. The shiny ball in my nose
is just a small
symbol of great change—a lifelong memento of what Stanford
has done to me.  |
