No, it couldn't possibly be too much to handle. I've been through much more than needles can ever amount to. That mantra is the only way I took the pain.

With a 12-gauge, surgical steel needle gently pricking you on one side of your nipple, your entire body floods with expectant and anxious heat; it's hard to keep that Zen calm. When I look back on how intense that was, half of me says that Zen calm would really have been nice. The other half reveled in it.

Since this week's issue has a great feature section on piercing, I think it's appropriate to share my experiences. Call me a masochist, if you will.

I have been pierced five times. I have one ring in each earlobe, a ring in my left rook, as it's called, and a pair of nipple rings. Yep, nipple rings. My mom was really great about it when she found out, but Dad didn't know until now (I hope). They aren't hanging there anymore, but I don't regret it at all.

Anyway, let's talk experience. It hurts; please don't ask if it does. I'll talk to you about it if you want, but realize I think you're naive if you ask that.

I had my ears pierced one night when I borrowed some money from the parents, once I was old enough to sign my own consent forms, and just did it without telling them. Upset doesn't even begin to describe the reaction when I got home.

The earrings weren't bad, though. The first morning was hellish, I'd never had a piercing and the blood and gunk were a little offending, but I figured, when in Rome É . They were healed about two months later.

I dabbled in stretching them for a while, got myself to a 2-gauge plug in each ear and could go no further. My Tech ID is the only photographic evidence of that bad decision. Now I wear 10-gauges, which are less in-your-face.

Next, I pierced my nipples. The piercing thing gets into you once you overcome the initial fear of the pain. It's a conquest of willpower over instinct.

The ordeal lasted about a half an hour, from the point of working myself up to it to walking out of the parlor with jewelry in my chest.

The pain, though. I've never felt pain like that in my life. It's like waking up. Heat floods through you like you're burning alive from the inside and you wake up when it breaks through the other side of your nipple.

I wiped the sweat off of my brow and looked down at myself, down at a needle firmly lanced through my right nipple. Then I realized I wasn't going to let myself be lopsided.

I had to take about five minutes before I'd let them approach me with the second needle, much less put that five seconds of pressure to get it in.

They lasted about a year before I took them out, one at a time. One was slowly growing out, the other was half-ripped while fencing. A sword point in the chest never hurt so much.

The rook piercing, which is the little overhanging flap in the cartilage of the ear, was a cakewalk in comparison. It popped when it went through and had to be pierced with a curved needle because of the angle. Sleeping was odd for months afterward.

Make sure that if you do feel adventurous, you take your body to a clean and reputable piercing studio, and then be prepared for upkeep. All of my holes were earned in the spotless studio of Skinworks Tattoo in Bossier City. I trust Mickey and his years of expertise.

Nick Todaro is a senior journalism major from Shreveport and serves as a news editor for the Tech Talk. E-mail comments to nst005@latech.edu.