School started this week, so I decided to organize the bag* I bought last summer before my first year of grad school. I put it through a lot last year, but it has held up really, really well. Since I was emptying everything out anyways, I thought it would be fun to take a look at what's in my bag for this first week of my second year of grad school. I *might* do this at the end of the semester, too - as long as the contents aren't too embarrassing. My bag is always full of junk by the end of every semester, so we'll see.
In the zippered exterior pocket, I keep my keys and a flash drive along with a few snacks. Today, it happened to be a bag of raw almonds, a larabar, and some baby carrots. My arms are long enough that I can reach the contents of this pocket whether I'm wearing the bag off one shoulder or cross-body, and it's nice to have these specific things within constant reach.
The two end pockets are very straightforward: My Nalgene bottle and my cell phone.
Under the flap, there are 4 main pockets, 2 zippered and 2 pouch-like.
In the upper right zippered pocket, I keep replacement lead and erasers for my mechanical pencils, a deck of cards, and a headband. In the lower right pouch pocket, I have a variety of pens, pencils, highlighters, and markers as well as sticky flags and a small notebook that I use to track daily assignments.
In the upper left zippered pocket, I stow a set of earbuds, EOS lip balm (love those things! The mint is my fav), a baggy of advil, and yet another flash drive. In the lower left pouch pocket, I keep a package of Orbit peppermint gum (best gum ever!), a black notebook for jotting down random stuff, another small notebook for brainstorming topic ideas for papers, and a small bottle of hand sanitizer.
Inside the main compartment, there is a padded section where I keep my laptop when I need to have it and a narrower pocket in the front that I usually don't use.
When it's not holding my computer, the padded pocket usually has some empty manila envelopes, lyrics I've written that my brother has put music to, and whatever pieces of mail I just picked up from my parents or want on hand for easy reference.
The main compartment of my bag holds my tutoring and volunteer work notebook, my class notebooks and folders, my wallet, and, because I don't have any book reading assigned for my classes yet, my Nook with the awesome Jonathan Adler cover I bought for it, Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell (a book I just started reading), and Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey (a book I'm almost done reading). Not pictured because I was using it to take these pictures: my camera, which is usually in one of the elastic side pockets inside the main compartment.
It'll be interesting to see what this bag looks like come December 6th. I'd be willing to bet money it has at least one empty Hot Tamales box - my go-to study snack during finals every semester.
*Here's the current model of my bag. It's on sale for $67, which I consider an absolute steal! I paid full price ($90) for my version of it, by far the most I've ever spent on any bag, and it has been worth far more than every penny. I'm crazy about the current one, though. The color scheme and monogram are so awesome!
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