In times like these you start to notice more and more people getting tattoos.

Tenth grade English teacher Angela Laginess has seven tattoos. She has two on her fingers, one on each wrist, one on her neck and two on her back. Each of them has a specific meaning to them.

“Two of them are my favorite literary tattoos, the triangle that represents three
and water that means cleansing,” said Laginess

The two tattoos that are on Laginess’s fingers are a triangle and a wave

“I have two tattoos on my wrist, the bird I have with my best friend Cristina I’ve
known for about 25 years. My sisters and I all have a lotus,” Laginess said.

Tattoo’s are expensive and take lots of time. Depending on the size and color of the tattoo you may have to take more than one session to get the tattoo done.

“Depending on the size and variation of colors in the tattoo, your skin can be pierced between 50 and 3 thousand times per minute. Some people are not aware of the amount of times the skin is pierced and this may determine the final outcome of the tattoo that was originally chosen,” said Katherine Giesen of the  website of EmpoweHer.

Laginess has a star on the back of her neck, and has meaningful story with it.

“My mom used to tell me stories of the stars at night and North Star leads you home, and I traveled to many different places and many different countries, but I always think of my mom,” Laginess continued. “I have one on my shoulder that is a dandelion, it’s very whimsical and turns into birds, and I have a cross on my back as well.”                             

Laginess got her first tattoo when she was seventeen, a cross that’s on her back. When she graduated from high school there were only about three other students out of 450 with tattoos because it was unheard of someone so young to have one.

Tattoos are inspired by tragic events that that person has overcome and is there to remind them that they are stronger from it and is inspired from a memory dear to that person, or someone close.  

“The ones that have most meaning to me is between the ones that are on my wrist. The lotuses bloom through anything and I’ve been through a lot.I grew up very poor,” Laginess continued. “My mother was a high school dropout. I feel the lotus represents on how my sisters and I will always overcome what we had to deal with and we will always rise above that, so I think since it represents my family as well, I would go with the lotus,”

Tattoos can cause some problems when going into a career. When she first went into teaching she had only one tattoo on her back.

“When I lived in Las Vegas with my first teaching job, I got three new tattoos when I lived there, the ones on my wrist and the one on my neck. I do cover them up when going into interviews,” Laginess said.

Times have changed, from twenty years ago. People would be looked down on by having tattoos. Nowadays it doesn’t affect you getting a job as much as it used to. More and more people are starting to get these pieces of body art.

“It didn’t affect me getting my job; I was easily able to cover them up. The two finger tattoos will be a little harder to cover up, but I don’t feel in today’s age people should have a right to discriminate against body art.” Laginess continued. “ I don’t think its that big of a deal in jobs as much as it was in the past, and I would be willing to fight to get the job that I wanted if my tattoos are the issue, but it will not stop me from getting tattoos. I will find a place that will accept me for who I am.”