Show Needle-nos- e pliers gopher passers sugarless gum What's in your bookpack? story and photos by Kirsten Christensen news editor What docs a College of Eastern Utah student carry in his or her bookpack? For the past 50 years many anthropologists sociologists psychologists and Sherlock Holmes look-alikhave lost thousands of hours of sleep pondering this deeply profound mystery Last week The Eagle decided to try and put to their rest sleeplessness and solve this puzzling problem In a random survey conducted in the library the Main Building and the SAC students divulged what was in the deepest darkest abysses of their bookpacks The results of our survey indicate the "average" CEU student carries a backpack style bookpack and in it arc 36 books 16 spiral notebooks 13 binders 3 folders and 33 loose papers The average student prefers blue pens to black ones and flourcsccnt yellow highlighting markers to the 13 other colors sold in the bookstore usually carried are 14 blue pens 9 black pens and 3 highlighter markers Also plain yellow number 2 pencils are the choice of die average student Automatic pencils are clearly out of fashion In addition to books and writing tools nearly half of the average CEU students have calculators The average student also seems to prefer sugar-les-s gum and has 38 sticks of Extra or Trident as well as 73 cents in loose change (mostly nicklcs and pennies) to purchase the gum Another finding of our survey is that there is no "average" CEU student hi fact it was a rare student who actually carried only books and pencils in his or her bookpack For example when Eric Hanson dumped out the contents of his bookpack mi the library table there was found among his books and blade pens (Mack pens alone prove he isn't average) a red Tootsie Fop left over from Halloween and a Gopher Gasser yep a Gopher Gasser He explained it is a smoke bomb used to kill gophers but he wouldn't explain why it was with his calculator and checkbook I guess that is one problem that will have to be left to the psychologists and sociologists Other unique items carried in the murky bottoms of bookpacks were needle-nos- e pliers thermal from forks the ("borrowed" cafeteria) AA couplers batteries "free tape” stickers Park City ski passes buttons Walkman style radios and tape players (undoubtedly used Tot reviewing lectures recorded in class) circuit boards and plastic screw drivers es The Eagle-pag- e 5 Are you an average CEU student? Despite the variety of things found in book-pacthere did seem to be some common characteristics of items carried by most students The most usual item even more prevalent than books was food Actually remnants of food At the top of the list for food items is gum wrappers Closely following them are Certs and empty potato chip bags Then there were assorted candy wrappers empty Pepsi cans entire of diet Coke which according to the carrier is genie by the end of the day empty Coors Light cans POp Tarts Oreo cookie wrappers water jugs suckers Thirst Buster mugs from Circle K and entire e meals But food isn't always on the minds of CEU students Learning tools though fewer in number were found also in their bookpacks Things like compasses blue books tape recorders (for recording lectures to be listened to on Walkmans of course) note cards graph paper French language tapes liquid paper staplers periodic tables of chemistry dements and poems by William Strafford were all found in bookpacks Another concern for students seems to appearance for among the learning tods were hair picks combs Mushes lipstick nail polish earrings (that the owner could stand to wear only for her first class) sunglasses perfume contact lens cases ratoothbrushes toothpaste and dental zors band-aid- s floss Another finding from the survey is that some of the information given out by the instructors must be hard to swallow or at least hard to digest since the most common drug found among the bodes and blue pens was Pepto Bismol tablets Headaches are also a common ailment of CEU students since there were nearly as many aspirins Car-me- x was the chdce for edd sores and Midd for ks seven-cours- Dave Grundvlg has a new concept for carrying things In a book pack Ha carries stuff on the outside as well The most Important things such as his coffee mug are kept readily accessible cramped lifestyles Throughout the survey when asked to reveal the innards of their back packs most students willingly emptied them out onto the table or floor There were however a few who wouldn't even lode inside their bags and said all they had were books and pencils Whatever was lurking in their back packs was obviously too frightening for them to even look aL Sadly the contents in those back packs will forever remain a mystery The psychd-ogis- ts will just have to keep working with those uncooperative students The next great mystery we will try and solve is: docs anybody know what time it is? Docs Neil Warren really care? Tammy Farnsworth subjected the contents of her book pack to the scrutiny of the survey Among her Oreo cookie wrappers and aerobics clothes were a Tew text books and note booka voDsimilllin& aft Floral Binkcirtfi vileemi 64 N 100W Price UL (37-337-7 |