ETEC 540 Blog - What's in your bag?

I chose to approach this task with a retrospective lens. I have moved to Canada from Ukraine 14 years ago, and my lived experience in a post-Soviet space informs how I view my current realities. In reflecting on these personal "texts", I see how they are deeply intertwined with my sense of belonging, my engagement with language, and my understanding of the socio-cultural shifts that have shaped my life.

Essentials:

Cellphone
Credit card
Library card
Driver’s license

Miscellaneous Items:

Random card from a board game
Saxophone reeds
Playing card (4 of clubs)
A "Scene" card
A very old parking receipt (from last year)
A foam letter "O"
2 receipts)

Looking back 15 years ago: on dictionaries and driver's licenses

Fifteen years ago, I was still in Ukraine, uncertain about where life would take me. I was a student then, lugging around a huge backpack stuffed with books, notes, and snacks. As a philology student, carrying a hefty Oxford dictionary every day was a requirement for my classes—smartphones that hyperconnect (or hyperdisconnect) us hadn’t yet transformed our lives. There was something comforting and almost intimate about flipping through those thin pages, scanning the neighboring words on my way to uncovering a definition. The laser focus, the small satisfaction when I finally arrived at the right word and it clicked in my mind—these moments were part of a deliberate slowness that no longer exists. Now, that experience is obscured by the myriad of connections and endless possibilities a cellphone offers.

These days, when I use my phone, my attention feels fragmented by the constant stream of tasks I could or should be doing—it’s never just one thing. When I was teaching English for Academic Purposes at the University of Alberta, my students and I often discussed smartphone boundaries in the classroom. They weren’t allowed to use their phones for entertainment, but they could look up words in the dictionary. I often wished I could hand them a paper dictionary and watch them flip through the pages, discovering the yet unknown in the same way I once did.

Back in Ukraine, I didn’t drive—because I was a woman. My parents believed that signing me up for driver's ed would be a waste of time. My dad used to say that I would just get driven around, and that was the end of the discussion. Not going to lie, at one point, driving a car seemed like an incredibly complicated task. Driving in Ukraine was highly gendered, and I still remember my sense of disbelief when I saw a female bus driver for the first time in Canada. It made me realize how deeply our environment shapes the literacies and skills we develop.

Back then, I relied on an unreliable public transit system to get around. My mother and I would carry our groceries home, since neither of us drove, and my dad’s car was almost a sacred object. Now, holding my Canadian driver’s license—a small piece of plastic with my black-and-white photo, my Canadian address, and a string of license numbers —it serves as a record of my presence here. It legitimizes my place in this country and grants me the freedom to drive. I often forget how what now feels like an uninspiring routine—going to Costco to stock up on groceries for my endlessly hungry family—would have seemed like the pinnacle of success to my 21-year-old self.

Present day: random objects and libraries

I do carry a bunch of random stuff in my purse—you might have noticed the random card, a foam letter "O," and saxophone reeds. What could I possibly need them for? The first two often serve as emergency distraction tools for my very inquisitive toddler. They’re on regular rotation, so I usually have a few brightly colored, random objects tucked away. It’s funny how many of my toddler's toys are literacy-inspired—foam letters seem to be a permanent fixture in my living room.

As for the saxophone reeds, they’re there just in case my teen needs them. I never get tired of saying how proud I am of her for learning music—something I could have never even dreamed of having the opportunity to do back in Ukraine. It’s interesting to think about how small my purse is, yet my children still occupy space in it, both literally and figuratively.

Among everything in my purse, my library card is my favorite. My mother used to take me to the library often, and I’m so grateful she did. The library we visited was tucked away in the basement of a five-story apartment building. With its low ceilings and cramped rows of bookshelves, it felt like an enchanted labyrinth. The dim light filtering through the narrow windows transformed it into a quiet sanctuary, a place where I could lose myself in the whispers of fairytales and stories.

Now, we go to the library often, and each visit brings a familiar sense of peace and comfort. Reading has always been a solace for me—an escape and a meditation on what might be possible. And while I consume a lot of content digitally (as students in an online program, don’t we all?), there’s something special about holding a physical book, letting the narrative carry me away. No matter how much technology evolves, that will always be my preferred way to engage with a story.

In transition: Texts, Technologies, and Belonging

The items in my purse serve as interwoven threads that reflect glimmers of the narrative of my daily life and the evolving identity of an immigrant woman. Each object is a sliver of the tapestry of my lived experiences, connecting moments of my past with the present life in Canada. The library card is a symbolic thread that ties together my childhood memories in Ukraine with my current experiences of visiting the library with my own children. This space represents continuity, nostalgia, and my existence in language/s, reinforcing my sense of belonging across cultural and temporal divides.

In contrast, the text technologies I carry, such as my cellphone, highlight the evolving nature of literacy in the digital age. Unlike the slow, immersive process of flipping through the pages of a physical book, my phone fragments my attention, pulling me in multiple directions at once. It provides instant access to information but lacks the tactile engagement and contemplative space that traditional reading offers. This juxtaposition between print and digital texts makes me wonder about the stark duality of engaging with texts—one rooted in deep, reflective reading, and the other in rapid, multifunctional digital consumption.

My Canadian driver’s license, another small but significant text, speaks to the broader socio-cultural changes I’ve experienced—granting me freedom of movement and a legitimized presence in a society where driving is no longer a gendered privilege but a common skill. In many ways, mastering driving in Canada mirrored the process of acquiring a new language; it demanded patience, consistent practice, and the courage to drive on icy roads.