Task 1: What’s in my bag?

The bag:

For this project, I chose the tokidoki backpack that I carry with me to work every day. It was a gift from my husband about a week before our wedding in 2019 and I have used it almost daily since then. Tokidoki is a Japanese word that translates to “sometimes.” I find it interesting that the brand is named with a Japanese word even though the bag was designed in Italy by an Italian-speaking person. The design of the bag itself shows my love of vibrant colours and cute characters.

My bag is decorated with a yellow ribbon from the Endometriosis Association that reads, “Ask Me About Endo.” Endometriosis is an inflammatory condition that has affected my day-to-day life for the past 20 years. I like to show my support for others who are dealing with similar conditions, and I am always happy to answer any questions people have on the subject.

The contents of the bag and their daily uses:

• iPhone 11 (not pictured because it was used to take the photograph)
  • I always carry my phone because I use it for texting, calling, emails, calendars, and as my main camera
• iPad pro with apple pencil
  • Tayasui sketches: I use this app for illustrating lab manuals and creating diagrams for quizzes, exams, and demonstration material
  • Goodnotes: this app is a pdf editor that allows highlighting, annotation, and the addition of note pages and images, used for reading and studying documents for work and the MET program
• Inventory list of lab supplies
  • One of my duties as an undergraduate laboratory coordinator is ensuring that we have enough supplies to teach the courses. I have a Microsoft excel spreadsheet listing chemicals and consumable lab supplies that I mark up with pen and update on the computer later. I do not use this daily but have been updating it frequently in the past week as I prepare for ordering.
• Writing implements
  • Pen, pencil, and highlighter for making notes
• Toiletries
  • Advil, which I frequently use for headaches and muscle cramps
  • Lip balm because the air is very dry in Saskatchewan, regardless of the season
  • Eye drops (for the same reason as above!)
• Wallet
  • This Mat & Nat wallet was one of my best thrift store finds because it is sturdy and relatively compact while still having enough room to hold my chequebook, bank cards, health card, driver’s license, staff card, a few gift cards and business cards, receipts from work-related purchases, and occasionally some cash
• Seed packets of watermelons and Chinese long cucumbers
  • Admittedly, these do not have a daily use. I plant them once or twice per year in the greenhouse at work for use in the laboratory. They should be in my desk drawer but have been carried around for the past while since I forgot to remove them from my bag after the last planting.
• Hair ties & clips
  • I have very fine hair (and a lot of it) and if I wear it down, it is usually wild enough by midday that I need to tie it back to keep it out of my face
• KN95 mask
  • Medical grade masks are still required in any shared spaces at my workplace, and although no longer required in other places in the city, I continue to wear one in public places.
• Water bottle
  • The main purpose of my bottle is hydration, but it also shows some of my interests. It is almost completely covered with stickers that I have acquired from conferences, scientific supply companies, local businesses, and friends. I previously worked as a botanist and I am passionate about native prairie conservation, so I even have a sticker picturing a person performing a controlled burn to mimic wildfire in a conservation area.
• Work keys
  • The biology building on campus is undergoing a several-year process of asbestos abatement and renovation, so our teaching spaces have been redistributed to several other buildings, which requires me to carry many different keys.
  • The little key fob on the ring allows me access to some research areas but not others.
• Car, house, shed, bike lock keys with library card, K Market loyalty card, and tick-removing tool on the keychain
  • I love hiking and photographing plants, insects, and fungi. Much of south and central Saskatchewan has a very large population of ticks in grassy areas, so the tick removal tool comes in handy in the spring and summer months.
  • I shop frequently at the K Market, which stocks Korean and Japanese grocery items that are otherwise difficult to find in Saskatoon.
  • I love reading, but do not use the library card very often anymore to check out physical books. I find it very convenient to read digitally using apps such as Libby on the iPad that allow me to borrow ebooks from the local library consortium.
• Naloxone kit
  • The one item in my bag that I have never used is the naloxone kit, and I hope the need does not arise. However, Saskatoon has seen an ever-increasing number of opioid overdose fatalities in recent years and naloxone is not a standard first aid kit item at my workplace. I know that students in the campus community use drugs, including some of my own students, and I want to be prepared in case of emergency.

In addition to what is pictured, the bag often also contains various other toiletries, lunch/snacks, draft assignments, and likely some garbage in the form of crumpled up receipts, bandage wrappers, or other small papers I plan to discard later in the day or week. There is also usually a lot more dog hair in and on the bag; I just happened to take a photograph on a day that it had recently been cleaned!

The iPhone and iPad are two of the more obvious text technologies that I carry with me. They allow for me to create and read text in multiple formats. I would also consider the spreadsheet printout to be a text technology, as well as the writing implements that I use to annotate the spreadsheet. Of particular interest is the names of chemicals on the inventory. The notation for each of the compounds I use to make hydroponic fertilizers are almost another language (e.g. unless someone has knowledge of the periodic table of elements, KH₂PO₄ would not likely be interpreted as the equivalent of monopotassium phosphate). The cards in my wallet and on my keychain are also text technologies, as well as the barcode that can be seen on the lip balm. Each has a string of numerical text represented by differently sized bars that can be scanned and used to look up more text associated with the numerical code.

If I had this same bag 20 years ago (during high school), it would not have contained an iPad or a phone. It would have had electronics in the form of a solar-powered calculator and a discman with a cd. The bag would likely have been stuffed full of notebooks, pencils, textbooks, and art supplies. I may not have had ibuprofen with me either, as I find that I require it more frequently the older I get. The only keys I would have carried would have been for my bicycle lock and house.

If an archaeologist studied the contents of this bag in the future, they might conclude that it belonged to someone who was interested in art and science, which is accurate. However, the presence of seeds in the bag and a chequebook that has the phrase, “Support local farmers” printed on each cheque might give the impression of a person who works in food production. This is not entirely incorrect since I did spend a few years working in a market garden and have an interest in plant breeding. However, gardening has become more of a hobby than a means of survival these days. The bright colours and patterns on the bag and the water bottle might lead them to conclusions about the fashion of the time, although they may not be accurate. I don’t think exceptionally busy patterns are representative of current fashion. The multiple languages (English, French, and Japanese) may indicate that the owner of the bag lived in a time of global economy, or that they were a polyglot. Truthfully, I am only fluent in English, my French is very rusty, and I speak no Japanese. The mask and naloxone kit would correctly indicate that I was alive during a time of a global pandemic and opioid crisis. I think this bag would be an interesting find for a future archaeologist!