I decided to unpack my work laptop bag for this task. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the items I packed in to take home on my final day of work before we began a lock-down here. It’s been over 8 weeks now since I’ve needed to use this bag and some items I had taken out as I’ve needed them but I placed them back for the picture. To begin exploring it’s contents, click on the numbered icons in the picture below or if the image doesn’t display follow this link.

I think the picture I am about to unpack tells enough of a story without me having to tell you exactly what I do or what my interests are (it gives some broad strokes at least to start the painting with and I will fill in the detail as we go along). The textbooks would probably be the first thing to give away that I am involved with teaching/ studying Chemistry in some way. I am in fact a lecturer in Chemistry at a local university and I think it’s also very valid to say that I am also still a student of this discipline because let’s admit it- can we really ever know everything there is to know when new knowledge is still being created on a daily basis?

You might also wonder why I have two textbooks here- well to be honest I have several more that I consult on a daily/ weekly basis. Only one could fit in my laptop bag along with the other items and so the second one I would carry by hand. This kind of text says something very important about the world I inhabit- the academic landscape. Knowledge is valued above all else in academia and so sources of knowledge like textbooks are regarded as sacred in some ways- “what the textbook says is final for most debates”. That is how it is at least in the physical sciences. The facts included in a textbook have been checked, re-checked and agreed upon by a global cohort of scientists. I am therefore not only expected to be literate in the English language that these books are written in but also the scientific language being used. A part of my job to put it crudely is to get the information that is held in that textbook into the heads of my students. I need to help them think about the natural world in the same way as these textbooks interpret it, they need to come to respect its sanctity and turn to it faithfully when in doubt if they too are to become literate in the world of science.

You might also notice in my bag the mixture of old and new forms of communication technology. I have several notebooks in which I make handwritten notes, printed copies of documents (that involved the use of digital devices to construct and print them), a USB drive to store digital data, a webcam, headset and a laptop for wireless communication and work. The Wacom tablet I think is particularly interesting though. I could use my Apple tablet with a stylus to perform much the same functions as I use the Wacom tablet for but I prefer the Wacom for the user experience it provides me. If you’ve ever used one you might know what I mean when I say it comes quite close to the feeling of writing with a real pen (the Wacom stylus has a very responsive pressure tip). The movement over the track-pad also gives you the feeling of writing on not paper but a material which offers some friction like paper does. After a few strokes on the Wacom, it feels very much like writing on paper, more so at least than a normal stylus and tablet experience does for me. Why that is curious to me though is because it seems almost as if this newer form of technology was developed to replicate or mimic an older technology (normal pencil and paper writing). Since it’s clear I like writing on paper and recording physical notes, I am therefore drawn like a moth to a candle with this device.

Then we get to what I think might look quite odd in this bag- a series of SIX yellow highlighters of the same brand. You might wonder if this girl is crazy. Yes, probably, but let me explain. This is my favorite brand of highlighter- I’ve used many and this one lasts the longest and is dependable. Why have six in one bag? Well, I use them for all my documents (work, research and MET work) and when I found out we were going into a lock down period, I went to the stationary shop on campus and bought four extra ones. It seems excessive but looking back at it I think what happened was that subconsciously in the midst of a lot of uncertainty and fear, this transaction brought me some comfort and security. I couldn’t control much going on in my immediate environment but being prepared for the coming situation by getting supplies was something I could control (a primal instinct that kicked in?). It sounds foolish saying that but it’s what I think happened, buying so many of those highlighters brought me some sense of security. That’s of course a detail that no one would have guessed had they not had a conversation about it with me (filling in the broad-brush strokes with extra detail).

I think my bag and its contents says that I use a blend of newer text technologies (laptop, Wacom tablet etc.) and older forms of text technology (handwritten notes). I clearly exhibit sentiment and preference for physical documents and communication methods (even though the stack of documents were constructed using most probably some kind of digital word processor and sent for printing over a wireless network which meant that the information for printing was deconstructed and sent as little pockets of information using radio waves). I also have a blend of items that would classify me as a professional but there are items that betray this image and gives insight into my personality in this bag too (the minions USB and those fun button badges I created for an Open day at the university). Again, I am a blend, this time of the professional and whimsical perhaps. If an archaeologist of the future were to examine this bag, they might have thought of me as someone not wanting to let go. Someone that doesn’t want to let go of favored past technologies or the image of their younger self.

The bag’s content would have been a little different 15 years ago as I was still at school then and the textbooks would be there albeit much thinner and the subjects more varied, a calculator would be present and a lot of documents and notebooks too. The technological items would be missing though (I didn’t have a laptop, webcam, headset or USB drive, tablets hadn’t even been invented then). I always have something fun and personal in my bags, I used to carry little Winnie the Pooh in costume key-chains with me on my bags (which serves much the same function as my minions USB does now). The bag would have looked much different though 25 years ago as I had just started school and I don’t think I could read properly then. The pens might have been replaced by crayons and of course none of the technological items would have been there.