Hi, my name is Dennis Steller, and I am a faculty member of specialty nursing at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). My area of specialty is emergency nursing, and I teach a variety of courses within a 10-month graduate certificate program for registered nurses seeking to advance their emergency room knowledge and work within the environment. I still often work as a bedside nurse in the emergency room to keep my skills and knowledge current.
The bag I’ve chosen is the only bag that I often carry: my work bag. Outside of work, I rarely take anything aside from my wallet, keys, and phone, alongside the mandatory toddler “go bags” that contain diapers and snacks for my two little children. I pine for a larger bag that could fit my lunch as well, but find myself restrained by the aesthetic implications.
The bag carries my essentials for work alongside a variety of quality-of-life items that are present for either convenience or comfort. The primary items are the work laptop, charger, stethoscope, and workplace ID. The secondary items include miscellaneous snacks (today, a chocolate bar and gummies), a jumble of over-the-counter medications (Tylenol, Advil, allergy medication), a pen, a whiteboard marker, contact solution and case, floss, daycare access card, gym membership card, headphones, wallet, phone (used to take photo), desk key, and a usual assortment of receipts for work that I have yet to submit for reimbursement. Today, the receipt found is from a hospital work visit that occurred in May 2025. My wallet contains a few more from between now and then.
The least used object these days is undoubtedly the stethoscope, which only makes an appearance when I either work as a nurse or visit practicum students for assessment. In viewing the space economy of my bag, it could probably sit in my trunk rather than take up potential snack space. Literacy and engagement within institutionalized healthcare and medical practice is implied, the text on the stethoscope identifying the model, commonly associated by price and perhaps dedication, by those also familiar with the tool.
Texts
The obvious outstanding artifact is the laptop computer, which enables a variety of multimodal communication and creation (voice, video, written text: instantaneous and delayed) to all persons with whom I interact. The laptop charger is a necessary companion that ensures consistent access and also doubles as a charger for my phone and headphones, which can perform or enhance all previous tasks and is used accordingly. However, the majority of its use is with friends and family, rather than at work.
These two artifacts significantly shape how I communicate in my daily life. When the vast majority of language and symbols sent to others are technology-mediated, it is less spontaneous and more predetermined, more filtered and less organic. It’s impossible to take back words I’ve said out loud or retract tone and posture; it’s very easy to delete a WhatsApp message from all conversation participants, then resend. Therefore, how others perceive me is naturally altered by the regular usage of these tools. Whether or not I’m content with that is an ongoing activity of reflection.
The BCIT photo ID, gym membership card, and daycare access ID all manifest as snapshots to the microcultures and worlds I inhabit. The work ID is personalized and contains a unique identification number, photo, and work-related phone numbers on the card. This number is registered with the school and can be used to communicate vast amounts of my personal data to anyone with access and the means to search it. The gym membership and daycare access card are manifestations of my season of life and the subcultures in which I frequently interact; they allude to fitness literacy as well as frequent contact with children, and the hours that can be spent in such places or cognitively dwelling there.
The hygiene products and old receipts align with the photo IDs in a way; they are a symbol and manifestation of the current flow of my life: rushing from one place to the next, from one responsibility to another: self-care to caring for others. I often find myself using these products in a place other than home due to a lack of time or the need to be quickly presentable. The case is the same for the medications: if I have a headache from a lack of sleep or neck straining at a computer, I don’t have the time to stretch! Pharmaceuticals will have to do for now.
The writing on these objects is digitally produced by automated processes that have interacted with the credit card (also automatically and digitally generated) contained in my wallet. The depth and breadth of connectivity to my information and multiple data managing institutions through these objects is immense. On which is the only piece of hand-written text on my person: my signature on the back. This gets me to the writing objects of the whiteboard marker and pen. Used exclusively for teaching, either in the classroom or at the bedside of a hospital, I use them to illustrate medical literacy and attempt to assist in knowledge transfer to my students through drawings, charts, and whatever else they request to help them achieve a satisfactory understanding.
When reflecting on whether or not this would be different ten to fifteen years ago, I would suggest significantly so. Likely, the primary items of a computer, phone, and wallet would remain, perhaps the gym card. The rest I would consider irrelevant or unnecessary; in their place, I would likely include more food, a change of clothes for exercise, or a water bottle. Pursuing reflection further, I would posit that these external artifacts that demonstrate my preoccupations align with my internal view of myself. My idealized self might also have a nice high-fantasy novel in the bag as well, but the pragmatic voice in my mind suggests I doubt I’d have time to read it, so why carry it.