Things I Never Did Before Covid Became a Thing

I'm sure everyone could write a list of the habits and things they do now that they never used to do before Covid.

The most obvious one for most people is wearing a mask although here in Japan, people tend to wear masks when they have a cold, suffer from allergies, don't want to catch a cold or the flu, have a cough or simply don't want to be recognized without make-up. I never used to wear masks before Covid. I remember when SARS first happened, we were asked to wear masks when we went on this school excursion to a water plant. Even during flu season, I never wore masks and I've been lucky to have never caught the flu yet. Then again, I try very hard to stay healthy and keep my resistance up.

I've always been a hand washer and a bit of a germophobe so those habits didn't change once the pandemic hit. In fact, I'm surprised that more teachers don't automatically wash their hands after teaching a class!

The habits I'm referring to are actually weird quirks that I have noticed myself doing lately. I wonder, does anyone else do these same things or am I just being paranoid?

1. The first thing I do when I wake up (as in waking up from a deep sleep, but not yet having left the bed or even opening my eyes) is swallow to see if I have a sore throat and then take a deep breath to make sure my breathing is okay.

2. The first thing I do after getting out of bed and after using the toilet (is that tmi?!) is take my temperature. I guess it's a good practice to get into, but I do this because we have been requested to do this every day before coming into work. If our temperature is 37.5 degrees Celsius or higher, we are NOT to report to work and we are asked to monitor our fever to determine if we need further checks to determine if we are sick or possibly infected.

3. I smell my food and make sure I can taste my food with whatever I eat. Sometimes I purposely have coffee for this sole reason. I breathe a sigh of relief when I can smell the strong aroma and enjoy the cup of coffee I've brewed.

4. Now, I don't purposely sniff this, but I do breathe another sigh of relief when I pick up Sinbad's poo when we're out on our walk and I can smell it when I dump it into the toilet. If my mom has used the bathroom and I know by its odor, I'm relieved as well. Any other time, I might be thinking, "Yech...how stinky" but under current circumstances, my nose welcomes the fact that it can still sniff out any odors.

5. I wear my hair in 2 little buns (I call it my "Covid buns") almost all the time now. No, I'm not trying to look like a kindergartener as one of my students accused me of doing. I chose this hairstyle because it keeps the hair out of my face and it's an easy one to wear a mask with.

So how about everyone else? Are there any quirks you've developed since Covid began?

PS The mask in this photo cracks me up. It makes me look like I have an animal face or a face like a Dr. Seuss character. One of my friends said I look like the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz! hahaha

xox