This is my school bag, and up until recently I’d leave the house with it almost every single day. If not to go to work, then to go to a coffee shop to work. If it had an odometer the number would be high.
Pictured we have, a DVI adapter cable, headphones, a phone charger, a plug for my laptop, my laptop, its case, my old school ring-bound planner – I record marks in there! There’s a hairbrush, whiteout, a couple pencils and a pen, my orange folder where I keep kids’ work for at home marking, a French grammar book and a French dictionary of prepositions. Plus of course the bag itself.
I think what we have here really speaks to me being very much of my generation. I was born in 1982, so I don’t quite fit with the millennials, but I’m certainly not a Gen-Xer. I read a definition once though for cuspers such as myself: XENNIAL! It’s for those of us who grew up analog but came of age digital – and that very well speaks to me. And I think the fact that I bought a book to use as a way to plan my days and to record my students’ names and grades and seating positions in class speaks at least a little to who I am and when I’m from.
« Text technologies » contained therein would certainly be the two books, but there’s of course mountains of text in my computer too. And from the books one could certainly ascertain that I have some degree of bilingualism.
I’m not sure that anything in here is « private », but I’m sure people could draw some conclusions about me based on my cool Apple sticker and felt & leather laptop sleeve and the fact that I carry a hair brush with me – but I’ll leave that to anyone’s imagination.
15 years ago I maybe would have had a laptop in there, but 15 years ago I drove a forklift in a warehouse and was not a student and didn’t have much need of a laptop. 25 years ago I was 13. I’d have still had the pencils and pen and whiteout; I’d have been doing a lot less marking though…
I think an archaeologist would find that this bag is exemplary of a pretty average person in the year 2020, who happens to speak some French.