Tag: sk6

For this weeks assignment I placed the contents of my backpack on the floor in an attempt to provide insight into my day. All these objects were extremely important for this particular Friday. Here is the list of items and their significance:

• Wallet – For the times when Venmo doesn’t cut it
• Apple – A quick snack between classes
• Earbuds – For peace of mind during my commute between classes
• It’s Your Health – One of my few physical texts.
• Water Bottle – Hydrate or Die-drate
• Coffee Mug – So I don’t experience caffeine withdrawal
• Laptop – My portal for all my assignments, research, and most readings
• Pen and Pencil – Filling in parts of my health book
• Why Architecture Matters – Reading for my assignment due this evening

Sunday Sketch #6

Laptop: I carry this one around incase I get bored and want to watch youtube in my classes… In all seriousness, however, my laptop is probably my most important tool I keep in my bag. I use it everyday to do schoolwork, homework, etc. Without this, I would really struggle to get through my day.

Notebook: My notebook is full of messy notes and messier doodles. The contents of my notebook represent what I’ve learned so far at Emory. Without it, I would have a really hard time studying for my bio tests…

Pens/Pencils: For someone who has really messy handwriting, it seems like I have a lot of writing utensils. Although I don’t use my pen/pencil as much as I used to in high school, I still like to carry them around as it makes me feel prepared.

Cough Drops: You never know when you’re going to need a cough drop. That’s my whole reasoning.

Chapstick: Nobody likes chapped lips. Just take a tube of it wherever you go.

Water Bottle: “Hydrate or Die-drate”, that’s something my swim coach always used to tell me. I always make sure I carry around my water bottle now as drinking water is effective at washing out toxins and other bad things in your body. Plus, nothing tastes better than a cold, crisp sip of water!

Snacks: Keeping up those calories! I always try to make sure I carry around snacks because I know that I lose concentration when I’m hungry

Phone Charger: Probably my most important item… I always keep a spare phone charger in my bag because it seems that my phone always dies at the worst times, so, keeping a phone charger is a simple solution to combat that!

When looking at the contents of my bag, I really do think that it reflects who I am as a person. I try not to carry anything that’s unnecessary, mostly because it would just make my bag heavier. When creating the actual image, I decided to separate the picture of the bag from the contents because when I originally laid out the bag next to contents of the bag, the image became very messy. The most challenging part of this assignment was laying out my stuff in a way that looked aesthetically pleasing.

As shown in the title, my bag is averagely average. There is nothing too crazy in there, but it does get extremely heavy. When I carry it throughout campus, I think to myself that I am helping my core, but I really do not think that much progress has been made. Starting from the top, there is the bag itself. When school shopping, I chose a grey backpack as to not contrast my outfits. I thought that grey pretty much goes with anything and I stand by that. I didn’t want to stand out too much, adding to the averagely average vibe. On the bag are two Pokemon pins and a Pokemon key chain. I added these small trinkets as a means to start conversation. Nerds in the video game community try not to out themselves, and these trinkets might encourage someone to talk about gaming without me having to expose myself. Surprisingly, this plan has worked extremely well, and I have gotten many compliments. My physics lab binder is to the left of my backpack. I placed it front and center because physics lab is my favorite class. The Best We Could Do is next to the binder solely for organizational purposes. The calculator might be the least average item in my bag. The pink color really contrasts the vibe my bag gives off; it was my sisters in high school. I have grown to love it, and it has also received a lot of compliments. Next are my notebooks- the first one is my green physics notebook (green keeping the theme). The red notebook are my notes for my class on comics (this class). I chose red because English courses always seemed like a ‘red’ or ‘yellow’ class but the Barnes and Noble didn’t have any yellow notebooks. The black notebook is my Econ notebook; I chose black because I always think of black suits when I think of Economics. Last but not least is my blue math notebook. In my mind, blue has always been the color associated with math. Below are my folders. I only have three folders because not that many of my classes give individual papers. The red and blue folders are color correspondents with their respective notebooks, but I had to buy a white folder for physics because Barnes and Noble did not have green. In between my folders are my scattered pens and pencils. I came to college with one pencil and have grown my arsenal throughout the semester by finding spares on the floor. In high school, I was the guy who never had a pencil going into class, but I have always had one at the ready in college. Under my folders is my dongle. Honestly, I still haven’t used it, but I have a sneaky suspicion that it will come in handy in the future. In the bottom right is my Econ textbook; I really hate Econ. Honestly, I still haven’t opened that textbook yet and the midterm is Monday, October 21st. In the middle is my PACE book. I personally think that PACE is super useless and I always forget to do the surveys. Last and least is health. Health is my least favorite class because the entire thing is just memorization. I stayed up way too late for many nights studying the test, and I still probably did poorly on it. I thought it was super ironic how the class preaches getting sleep, but I essentially had to stay up late because I am really bad at memorizing things.

Is representing yourself in a catalog of the stuff in your bag a type of writing? Why or why not?

This image is not really representative of me as a person from at outside perspective, but it really does describe me. I try and give off the image of an extreme extrovert who doesn’t care about what other people think. While I am still an extrovert, I care immensely about what others think, and carefully craft each conversation I have to show a better me. I know it sounds very fake, but it is actually something that I am very proud of. Verbal communication is my best skill, and I am not afraid to use it to my advantage (that sounded evil but I am not- I promise). My communication strategies can be seen through the trinkets on my backpack and my dongle. The trinkets on my backpack show how I try and start certain conversations and the dongle is also there as a backup. If anyone needs one (which many people do), I have one just in case. While making the image itself, I tried to be as organizational as possible; this hopefully made it visually pleasing. This assignment was surprisingly not challenging at all. I thought that the description would be very difficult and I would have to make some lame parallels to my life, but that was not the case. The connections came easily to me, and I had a lot of fun. Representing myself in a catalog was a type of writing because it gave a new and unique outlet to describe myself. Normally, people show things about themselves through their actions but this was totally different.

Here is a link to the assignment prompt!

• Solo New York Backpack- I chose this backpack because it has a lot of storage space and I can use it in 3 different ways: as a suitcase, an over the shoulder bag, and a regular backpack.
• HP Envy X360 Laptop– I needed a laptop for college and so I saved up my money from my summer job to get it.
• Chem150L Notebook– I have chemistry lab on Wednesday, but I kept it in this long because I like to work on my post lab assessments throughout the course of the week.
• TI-84 Plus CE Calculator– I usually have to do calculations for my chemistry and math courses, so a calculator is an efficient way to do all of the math involved.
• 3 Subject Notebook– Instead of having to purchase individual spirals and folders, I decided to invest in a 5 star 3 subject notebook for convenience and space usage. It has pockets which act like folders and paper which is sectioned off into 3 parts.
• Health Textbook- I was studying for my Health quiz and completely forgotten to take it out after I had finished the class for the week.
• Blistex– I don’t want to have chapped lips now that the weather is changing and so I decided to purchase some chap-stick to prevent that from occurring.
• Water, Nature Valley Bar, and utensils– I usually have to get a quick breakfast in before class so the water and granola bars are a go-to staple, and the utensils are for when I have to take my lunch on the go before I have to get to work at 2 P.M.
• Phone Portable Charger– Sometimes when I have been on my phone for too long I like to use my portable charger so that I am able to stay connected to the web longer.

I feel like this photograph is very representative of me because I like to have supplies for convenience more than having them to show their value. They are also indicative of my constant on the go mindset, where any chance I can to do work or do something productive I will. I chose to put the things that had more usage for me on the forefront of the photo while the things I used least often towards the back. This assignment felt by far the easiest that we have had so far because I only had to explain the reasons for having certain items in my backpack. Yes, representing myself through the items in my bag is a type of personal writing because I get to reflect on why it is I need something and how it will aid me in my daily endeavors.
Link Back to the assignment Prompt: https://eng181f19.davidmorgen.org/assignments/sketches/sketch-6-whats-in-your-bag/

• Ibuprofen – which I took 20 capsules in the past weekend.
• CeraVe face wash – a useful remnant of my consecutive couch surfing/sleepovers from the past week.
• 5 foot iPhone Charger – an object made virtually obsolete by the lack of LTE available in the wilderness
• Tube of hydrocortisone – in case any mosquitoes mistake my presence for a dinner invite.
• Black Crew Socks – a useless remnants of jazz III class supplies.
• Wallet – silk, shiny, completely adorable al for only 20 dollars!
• Sunglasses and Case – I think these were 10 dollars at UAL. Total steal.
• Organic Lip Balm – one of the few non-homemade lip balms I own.
• MILK MAKEUP KUSH High Volume Mascara – because I got it like that
• Too Faced Foundation and Concealer – because being in nature doesn’t mean going all natural.. feel me?
• Journal, Pencil, and Pen – tools for reflection and documenting my time.
• AirPods – just in case things get dull on the road on in the cabin.
• Shea Moisture Balancing Moisturizer – because I was not about to let that woodsy air dry my skin out
• Hair Gel, Eyebrow, and Edge Brush – to keep it LAID.
• 2 Scrunchies – adding a lil POP of color to any outfit.
• Rose-scented body spray – to keep it fresh in the forest. I thought it would help me integrate myself into nature into nature more by smelling like it. I don’t think I was totally wrong about that.
• Shea Moisture Braid Oil – to keep my hair so fresh and so clean.
• Water Bottle – gets me compliments/keeps me hydrated.
• Umbrella – because I don’t take chances with rain.

My typical purse for this week was packed for quite atypical adventures. From couch surfing through about three different dorms to a weekend wilderness retreat, I’ve done many things I’ve never done before this week, and my bag stocked full of daily necessities and a couple toiletries reflects that. The contents of my purse showcase more utilities related to caring for my outsides than my insides. I don’t usually carry around this much makeup with me (just mascara if I have a long day ahead of me) but with all the time I spent not sleeping in my own dorm my purse doubled as my toiletries this week. That being said, I still do think this picture represents a lot about me. The only thing that would complete it would be more stickers and Hot Tamales as I consider those items to be absolutely essential to my person (If I go ONE WEEK without my Hot Tamales fix my internal organs start to shut down). I loved the assignment this week. The hardest part was trying to make the picture as aesthetically pleasing as the ones you see on Pinterest. I didn’t accomplish that goal but I feel I came reasonably close. As for an autobiographical work, listing items with description does count as “writing”.

The extent of actual school work in my bag is a math notebook and book for class. Everything else is very random but practical at the same time. For my electronics, I have chargers, dongles and my AirPods. I also have a lot of vaseline because my lips get very chapped. I am also prone to frequent headaches which explains the travel packets of Advil. Finally, for some bizarre reason, I have a little travel kit with nail clippers, scissors, and some pliers.

This Sunday sketch is only our second sketch about self reflection, the other one being the avatar, however I found really helpful. With the avatar post I had to think about how to represent myself and then make something. However with this post, the stuff that represents me was already there, and all I had to do was dump it out onto the floor. That’s why, I think this photo above, of the contents of my backpack really does justice as a self reflective post. Mainly because I think it shows the type of person I am. I like to think that I am very organized and I try to always have “essential” items on me at all times. For example for this backpack, the first pocket is for medical stuff like Advil, tissues, and vaseline. Then the second pocket is all technology and chargers. And the last two pockets are for books and school work. This Sunday sketch was also a lot of fun, becasue it was cool to see my classmates bags and what they have with them all the time. Although we have been in school now for over a month, I still don’t know everyone that well, and this gave me a better insight into who they are.