Friday, October 06, 2006
Guest Weblogger: BEN BONNET
And now for your reading pleasure... I would like to include a piece written by a WINTER-OVER... Ben Bonnet. I actually first heard of Ben Bonnet by reading www.philjacobsen.com. Phil was going to make Ben the #1 Google for "Ben Bonnet" by writing his first and last name numerous times in an article about him on www.philjacobsen.com. That's how I first heard about Ben Bonnet. And as with all people I've read about on www.philjacobsen.com, as soon as I knew who Ben Bonnet was I ran up and exclaimed, "You're Ben Bonnet, and I read about you on philjacobsen.com!" He looked at me like I was some crazy newbie (which I was). I explained to him how I "knew" who he was. That was over 6 weeks ago. We've chatted a few times, and I still always say "Ben Bonnet" when I pass him in the halls. I asked Phil to write a guest weblog entry for me (which he hasn't), but as soon as Ben Bonnet heard I was doing this he found some time to write the following piece. He wrote this a few weeks ago... with a winter-over brain... so be warned... maybe not appropriate for kids. Enjoy!!
Greetings from your crusty, fried, toasty winter-over Ben Bonnet. That sentence took me 30 minutes to complete. There are some things that you need to know about wintering-over in Antarctica.
First of all, it rocks. I don’t think I could do any more summers after being spoiled by my winters. Winters are sooo cool. However, there are some things that happen to you when you winter-over. For instance, you have this pestering, nagging feeling like you want to slit your wrists and lie there bleeding and dying all over the bathroom floor. Also, some people (myself included) have troubles sleeping. This is because the human body has a circadian rhythm of 24.5 hours. When you see the sun, your rhythm resets. When you don’t see the sun, it doesn’t. Pools of blood, pools of blood. So you lose a half-hour of sleep each night until you are getting 2-3 hours every night out of pure-exhaustion. Like I said, this affects some people more than others. This might account for the desire to hang yourself by your shoelaces.
Another thing that we deal with is t3. I don’t fully know the medical explanation so let me make something up that sounds like the truth. Basically, your thyroid produces t3 when you have sunshine. When you don’t, it doesn’t. A deficiency of t3 causes short term memory problems. I can tell you all about a baseball game that I played when I was 10, but I have no clue what I had for lunch today. It is actually much worse than that. A winter-over has been known to just drift off in the middle of a sentence, because they forgot what they were talking about. This doesn’t really bother the listener because they forgot that you were talking too. It is sort of like having a concussion all the time. Kinda cool actually. Here penguin, here penguin. Good. I’m not going to hurt you. Heeheehee.
I think what really draws me to Antarctica is the community. During the last winter, we had 202 people on station. With a group that small, eventually you get to know everyone. This could account for the urge to walk up to someone in the Galley and hit them in the head with a hammer (true story). You get to know everyone and, because of that, it is a close-knit community that cares and watches out for each other. Except for Phil. No body watches out for Phil except for www.philjacobsen.com.
Well, I think I might have run out of words. At least I don’t feel like typing anymore. Go rent “The Shining” “Groundhog Day” and “Underworld” and you will start to understand the winter. It is a great time, but only if you are mildly insane. Now, where did I put that last brain cell?
Ben hiding from all the new Win-fly and Summer people...
Safe travels as you leave the Ice today, Ben Bonnet and Phil Jacobsen. I hope your travels are extremely satisfying, and I hope to see you both back here in January if all goes as planned for you!!!
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What a well written article. I wish I knew Ben Bonnet. He seems like such a swell guy and handsome too. Good times catching up on your blog in Roma. Keep it up! roscojamindigo@yahoo.com