How might these items be considered “texts” and what do they say about you, the places you inhabit, the cultures with which you engage, and/or the activities you take up?
These items reflect how I start my day every day by going to CrossFit, I am a mother of two kids under four and I work full-time. I get up at 5:00am each day to prep for my childrens’ day at daycare. The keys represent my movements because by 5:50am I leave my house to get to the gym by 6am. This is my way of getting some alone time because it is a continuous cycle of balancing work, family, and school life, it also helps to alleviate stress.
The wrist band, hand grips, and belt are all used to protect my hands from getting too rough and as protective gear for my wrist and back when I am weightlifting.
I use the pencil to keep track of daily workouts in my notebook as a form of accountability for the goals I set for myself.
The different shoes are worn depending on the type of workout I’m doing, cardio vs weightlifting.
Overall, the items shown are simply me trying to live a healthier and balanced life to slow down and make time for myself, so I can feel good. The hardest part is getting out of bed but once it’s done, I feel accomplished and ready to take on my day. I feel happier and if I am happy, there’s a better chance that everybody is!
Thinking about the title of the course, what are the “text technologies” in your bag, if any? What do these items say about how you engage with language and communication?
Digital
The phone and cards are digital, I keep my phone to receive phone calls in case of an emergency and my cards for transactions if I must make a quick stop at the grocery store or gas station.
I use the notebook to record and keep track of my workouts every day because it is just easier to scribble on paper and look at how I’m progressing. It’s very personal and probably one of the only times throughout the day I get to write on paper. The receipts are also prints from the grocery store, which shows that even though I use this time for myself, there is always something to do.
What do the items in your bag say about the literacies you have?
The items suggest that I’m competent in both digital and print and I can utilize either one to suit my needs. While I do use an app to track my workouts, doing it in the printed form is easier because, while I’m being timed for a workout, I find it difficult to unlock my phone to enter the information. Writing for me is easier and effortless.
How does the narrative of the (private) contents of your bag compare with the narrative produced by the image you have of yourself or the image you outwardly project?
Truth be told, the contents in my bag suggest that I want to be the best version of myself, and I would consider it private because I don’t really share with everyone that I get up at 5am every morning. This is my ‘personal time’ for me so putting it out there is not easy, I don’t think it really shows my entire image as a person because so many other parts of my life are missing from this gym bag. Since this is my downtime, I shut off the work part of my life so I can focus on myself and try to create a balanced lifestyle. One thing that really stood out and identified who I am is the Jamaican flag on my keychain, which shows how proud I am of where I am from. I take it everywhere I go, it’s a piece of my culture that reminds me of home.
What would this same bag have looked like, say, 15 or 25 years ago?
15 years ago, I would have been doing my first degree, and my bag would have a laptop and party flyers for sure and a lot of printed notes of me practicing C++ and Java.
25 years ago, I would be in elementary school carrying pencil cases and exercise books! Absolutely no trace of any digital media.
How do you imagine an archeologist aiming to understand this temporal period might view the contents of your bag many years in the future?
To understand these connections, we must pause and consider the history of the word (Scholes, 1992, p.460). In Ancient Greece, the gymnasion (γυμνάσιον) was a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men. Exploring the Etymology furthur in < Greek γυμνάσιον, < γυμνάζειν means to train, exercise, to train naked.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a gymnasium as “a place or building for the practice of or instruction in athletic exercises; a gymnastic school”.
I think the contents in my bag show a transition of how far we have come as presently both men and women are allowed to be in the gym. As it relates to digital access, we now have many choices to be present in person or at your own pace at home and have the option to incorporates both digital and text spaces based on our own preferences. In the future, an Archaeologist would see the entire gym reengineered with virus filtering systems and linked to software companies that perform data analytics to help us reach our goals.
References
“gymnasium, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2021. Web. 17 September 2021.
Gibaldi, J. (1992). Introduction to scholarship in modern languages and literatures (2nd ed.). Modern Language Association of America.
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