Perhaps You Can Tell that it's Only 20 Degrees Outside?

I am generally cold. People like Javert like to joke about it. For example, in Israel we went to the En Gedi nature preserve, where we learned about and saw an animal called the hyrax. Reading the sign (which was geared towards children and therefore written in the first person, from the perspective of the various animals) out loud, Javert replaced references to "hyrax" with references to me. As in: I am Emil. I have difficulty regulating my body temperature. In the morning you will often find me laying in the sun to stay warm.

My proclivity to get colder than other people prevents me from wanting to do certain activities, like skiing or swimming. I think I was never colder in my life than the day I went white water rafting in Maine, wearing an ineffective half wet suit. I was so happy to get back to camp that day, and I hated that camp more than anything.

But here is another reason to avoid cold water--and wet suits--which I found on BBC News today. The headline was Shark Survivor Speaks of Battle. Eric Nerhus was almost eaten by a shark--here's how the article describes his experience:

"His head, shoulders and one arm were inside the shark's mouth during the attack, off south-east Australia. Mr Nerhus, 41, says he survived by feeling for the shark's eye socket and stabbing with his fingers, prompting the shark to let go....'Half my body was in its mouth,' he said...Experts have said that there is a possibility the shark mistook the wetsuit-clad Mr Nerhus for a seal. 'Normally they feed on seal [...] so it's bitten in on this guy thinking he's a seal,' shark specialist Grant Willis said. He said that when the shark realised Mr Nerhus was not a seal he may have spat him back out again."

I'm very glad that Mr. Nerhus was all right in the end, but I also think this is super funny. He tried to better regulate his body temperature while diving and it led him right into the mouth of a shark.

Also, do you really think that sharks care whether they are eating seal or humans? Both probably taste delicious to, as the BBC video puts it, these "killing machines."