Task 1: What’s in your bag?

What is your daily need for the items in your bag?
Hi everyone, for this exercise I decided to share what is inside the bag I often take to work, which is my blue backpack. Click here to learn a bit more about me. 🙂

As I engaged in this task, I realized that I had quite a few things in my bag and each of these items serves a particular purpose. They have become essentials to my daily life and routine, and it often feels weird when I don’t have them with me. 

• Thermal water bottle: It’s my way of staying hydrated throughout the day. I also like to drink warm/hot water first thing in the morning, so this way my water stays at the perfect temperature. 
• Work lanyard with photo ID & whistle: Need for work/identification. 
• Mini lucky envelope: It was given to me by my aunt. Inside the envelope is a charm. It’s for well wishes and safety. Therefore, I keep it with me wherever I go.  
• Wallet: It holds all my bank cards, driver’s license, cash, and receipts. 
• Scarf: I am always scared of being cold. As a habit from traveling and living in Asia, I always put a scarf in my bag because it can be quite cold inside malls and places where they turn up air conditioning.  
• Notebook & pen: To keep track of schedule and important notes. The most traditional type of text tools. 
• Keys: Must have them when I leave the house. It has the fob to the main entrance along with an air tag and various membership cards/tags.
• Medicine/vitamin box: This box holds vitamins, Tums, and painkillers such as Tylenol/Advil. Just in case I need them or anyone else around me needs them. 
• Earphones: Mostly for music when I am on a walk or transiting somewhere. 
• Welch’s gummies: You will always find snacks in my bag. 🙂 
• Mints: It was given to me by a close friend because she bought an extra one and she said you can’t find Frisk in Canada anymore.  
• Feminine hygiene products: Always good to be prepared. 
• Tissue paper: I always have a pack of tissues in my bag because you never know when you need them. This is also a habit from living in Asia for many years. 
• Tinted lipstick: To add a bit of colour and to keep the lips moisturized! 
• Lucas’ Papaw ointment: This is such an amazing multipurpose ointment/cream. Amazing for hands, small cuts, rashes, and mosquito bites! 
• Hand cream: For dry hands. 
• Masks in a Ziploc bag: Result and reminiscent of Covid-19. They’ve just been kept in the side compartment of my backpack. 
• Fisherman’s friend: This was left in my bag because I had a sore throat a couple of weeks ago. 
• Sunscreen: It’s part of my daily skincare routine, so I make sure to have it in my bag whenever I need it. 
• Hair ties: For when I need to tie up my hair or when my friends need one.  

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 can be considered as “texts” because they solidify so many aspects of my life and the places I inhabit. It speaks to who I am as a person now, but it also holds onto the past versions of myself. As I am completing this task and reflecting on the significance of these items, I noticed that these items/”text” became a part of me through time and personal experiences. These items represent the cultures I engaged in whether it might be traditions or habits I picked up from my family or my experience living abroad. These texts also demonstrate the activities that I take part in. As I look closely at these items, I realize that they play an important role in communicating with me and the world. There is the relationship between me and these personal items, there is the relationship in how people perceive me to be because of these items, and lastly, the relationship between how I interact with the world using these items.

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?

In my bag, I have the most traditional tools of text technology – a pen and a notebook. You can say that I am quite traditional in the sense that I enjoy jotting things down using pen and paper. Nowadays we do much of our work on the computer and our phones. It’s almost second nature to us. There is something so special to me about writing/printing in a notebook or noting special dates on a calendar. Another text technology to note would be the bar codes and labels on the items in my bag. The bar codes are a part of identification whether it’s for my library card or my hand cream.  

What do the items in your bag say about the literacies you have?

It shows that the literacies are multifaceted, and that text and literacies are far beyond traditional text. In today’s world, so much of our text is expressed digitally. Literacies have expanded from traditional to digital literacies. So many of our daily interactions nowadays are done visually and so many of the items that we buy, and use are expressed through their design. The items in my bag show that I engage in various forms of text and technology.  

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?

To me, the contents of my bag only illustrate a small part of me. If someone finds this bag somewhere, they could make out what type of person I am, but they would not know who I am on a deeper level. The branding of the items in my bag may project a certain impression of me. The contents of my bag show that I am a well-prepared and thoughtful person. However, it does not fully demonstrate who I am professionally or personally.  

What would this same bag have looked like, say, 15 or 25 years ago?

Most items in my bag are daily items that people use, so in some ways, I think the bag would be quite similar. Perhaps, instead of listening to music on our phones now, 15 or 25 years ago people used iPods or CD players so they would have one of those in their bags. I remember how excited I was when I got my first CD player! Of course, we cannot forget the wired headphones. We certainly didn’t have air tags back then. I have an air tag on my set of keys now just in case I lose them for easy location. Instead of a fob to the apartment entrance, maybe it would have just been an entrance key. In my wallet, I might carry more cash with me. Nowadays, we often use our credit cards and a lot of people would even have their credit cards linked to their phones.  

How do you imagine an archeologist aiming to understand this temporal period might view the contents of your bag many years in the future?

If an archeologist looks back at the contents of my bag, they will be able to have a fairly clear snapshot of this period of time when traditional text and digital technology merged. They will be able to identify the text technologies of this time and have a closer look at consumerism and the brands and items that were popular during this time. In addition, they will be able to look at and analyze how far design and text have come and how it has changed from the past. It is amazing to think how in the future archeologists will look at artifacts from this period to see what text technologies and life look like now compared to their time.