Daily Lobo: Why are you majoring in Biology?
Aja King: Well, I really like science, and I think there's a lot I can do that kind of affects the environment I'm living in if I'm majoring in Biology. I was considering going into conservation ecology.
DL: Are you a vegetarian?
AK: Yes, I am.
DL: Why's that?
AK: It originally started off because I didn't want to put resources into an industry that commoditizes sentient beings, because I think that the majority of the farming industry really just treats animals like they're material objects and have absolutely no regard for their welfare, which tends to be true. Now it just kind of grosses me out.
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DL: How long have you been a vegetarian?
AK: Probably, like, four or five years.
DL: Do you remember what you last ate before becoming one?
AK: I actually don't remember what my last meal was. I'm pretty sure it was a cheeseburger, though.
DL: How do you think we should address global warming? Is it too late?
AK: I definitely don't think it's too late, because we haven't reached our carrying capacity. Once that happens, then it's going to be hard to return from that point. Basically, the carrying capacity is the amount of resources available to support a given population of organisms, and once you reach that point, there's a huge dropoff in the population because you have people that aren't going to be able to eat, (or have) shelter. You're just not going to have enough resources to sustain a number greater than that.
DL: OK. I have to ask you about your nose. Is that a gauged piercing?
AK: Yeah, it goes all the way through. I got it the week before I attended orientation at UNM.
DL: Do people always look at your nose when they're talking to you?
AK: Yeah, usually they'll just ask me if it hurts. And then they want to touch it.
DL: Do you let them?
AK: No.
DL: Did it hurt?
AK: No, not at all. I think people handle pain in different degrees, but I know when I got it pierced, my eyes didn't even water or anything like that. That happens to people sometimes, and I've just been periodically stretching since that point.
DL: Why didn't you pierce it on the side like most other people do?
AK: It just didn't seem extreme enough for me, honestly. I think that people dress a certain way and adorn themselves a certain way to attach themselves to different - I don't want to say "scenes" because that's not really what it's about. I guess it's kind of like a tribal thing.
DL: A tribal thing?
AK: It's kind of hard to explain because it's so personal to me, but basically I kind of did it to kind of attach myself to something greater than I am. Like, it just goes back to the whole vegetarianism thing. There are a lot of people out there that think being a vegetarian doesn't do shit. It actually does, because, like I said, I can sleep at night knowing I'm not putting money into something like that. I don't buy any beauty products tested on animals; I try not to use plastic water bottles; things like that. It's just trying to think about the effect I have on the environment around me.
~Pat Lohmann
