I hope you’ll like it, and I can’t wait to get feedback on the new blog!

The Endeavour will begin publishing again the week of March 4. As such, I will post two new stories, and a column here as well.

Thanks!

Charles (Stephen Graham), and his wife, Ruth (Kaleen Harding), are joined one evening by their friends, Dr. Bradman (Don Berner), Mrs. Bradman (Barbara Nish), and a Medium, Madame Arcadi (Kate Connolly). They successfully communicate with the spirit world, in what appears to be simply for curiousity sake.

Their attempt brings the ghost of Charles’s deceased ex-wife, Elvira (Rita Peterson), into the living world, but only Charles can see and talk to her, which leads everyone else to assume he’s gone mad, especially when he keeps trying to convince them that he’s talking to a ghost.

Hilarity ensues as Charles, his wife, and their friends do their best to understand why Elvira’s spirit has decided to haunt them, and the fact that she doesn’t want to go back to the spirit world now that she’s with Charles again. Charles and Ruth’s marriage is also put to the test as her patience runs thin very quickly over this ‘joke’, especially when it is discovered Elvira’s resentment of their marriage.

It seemed clear after asking numerous members of the audience that the character of Elvira was definitely the fan favourite.

“I thought she (Elvira) was funny, wonderful.  We love the makeup, she’s just really well done. The costume and the lighting. The acting is stand-out, very good,” said Amy Dodic.

Though the play did have a serious tone, it had many hilarious moments and one-liners that made it a joy to watch, and as some audience members noted, the production as a whole was very well done.

“I thought it was awesome. The ex-wife factor, love it. I want to haunt someone, that would be cool! I hope I can do that when I die! I love Elvira. I’d like to know what she would have looked like when she was alive,” said Shelia Standish, who admitted it was her first time seeing the play.

The production itself has been around for many years, and certain theatre-goers seem to have no hesitation in coming back to see it over and over again.

“We’ve seen it many times,” said the wife of Charles Lanier, who both agreed they enjoyed it as much that night as they did the first time they saw it.

Those in the audience all seemed to agree that the production was very well done.

“Very much so,” said Suzie Berge, when asked if she enjoyed the play. “Good acting, good makeup, good costumes, very effective.”

The play itself obviously seems more targeted toward the older generations and the elderly, as there didn’t seem to be a single young audience member in the seats.

Overall, ‘Blithe Spirit’ was an excellent theatre production, including the acting, costumes, and the set. Although it lasted nearly three hours, it was well worth the price of admissions, and the evening needed to watch it.

The health clinic located at Lethbridge College sees many students and even some staff members who come in complaining of anxiety or stress related symptoms.

“We most definitely people, students and staff that come in here,” says Mary Coles, head nurse at Lethbridge College. “A lot of times, they’re presenting with some chest pain, and they’re having trouble breathing and they’re hyperventilating, and they’re very panicked.”

Coles also says that the first thing the nurses and doctors at the clinic do is rule out anything organic, such as the possibility of a heart attack, and they will check for vital signs, putting patients on oxygen and check for a variety of different symptoms.

After ruling out things such as a heart attack, they focus on calming the affected person down.

“We have to then calm them down, and one of the very best [ways] to do that is to do a series of three deep breaths,” says Coles. “You take a breath in very, very deeply, but when you’re blowing it out, you have to have a lot of resistance in your lips, like you’re blowing up a balloon, so [it will take longer to exhale].”

Nurses will get the patients to imagine themselves in an environment that makes them happy in order to slow their breathing.

“Having them do visualisations [of] things that, in the past, have been a place of calm and content for them, Looking up at the sky, seeing a flock of geese, watching the clouds float,” says Coles.

Symptoms of a panic attack can include shortness of breath, sweating, shaking, chills or hot flashes, tightening of the chest, dizziness, tingling, and it may feel like a person’s heart is jumping out of their chest. They often come on suddenly and without much warning. Some people worry that they may be having a heart attack or a stroke, which is why panic attacks are so frightening.

If panic and anxiety symptoms keep reoccurring, people may need to try medications that can help stop or at least lessen the impact of anxiety and panic symptoms.

“One of the most common is Effexor, it’s [an] anti-anxiety, and a bit of an anti-depressant. [It] seems to be one of the better ones,” says Coles.” Ativan can make you feel quite sleepy, it’s [for crisis situations], it’s quick acting.”

A panic attack can last between 5-10 minutes.

According to AnxietyBC.com, “people with a phobia of dogs might have a panic attack whenever they are near a dog. But in this case, the panic attack is expected, and the person is afraid of the dog, not the panic attack.”

Everyone feels anxious from time to time, and often a sense of panic as well depending what kind of situation they are in, be it working last minute on a homework assignment, or rushing around town to get errands done. These feelings are normal, but it’s when they are too much for a person to bear that they become a problem.

“Panic disorder, in particular, will affect about 3.7% of Canadians in their lifetime (just under a million people) and affects 1 to 2% in a given year. On average, it appears in a person’s mid-20s, and like most other anxiety disorders, is treated more commonly in women than in men,” explains heretohelp.bc.ca.

Hypothermia is when the body’s core temperature goes below 35 degrees Celsius (apprx. 95 fahrenheit). The body’s normal body temperature is 37°C (apprx 98°F). In the extreme cold, frostbite can also happen when a part of the body freezes.

As noted by Canada.com, severe frostbite does cause long-lasting bodily damage. Smokers and people with diabetes, or other circulatory problems have a higher risk of getting frostbite.

The best way to avoid being harmed by the cold is to know ahead of time what you’re dealing with.

“[Know] the elements,” says Ward Edley, who works with the city of Lethbridge’s fire department. “The wind chill plays a huge factor, [especially] with exposed skin.”

Residents of Lethbridge know all too well what strong winds feel like, as we live with them on a regular basis. As Edley points out, though, we must continue to take them seriously, as they can make temperatures of -18 feel more like -30 or lower.

If you are out in the elements for an extended period of time, and you stop shivering, or you start losing dexterity, or start feeling sleepy, you’re experiencing the start of Hypothermia, which can be fatal.

“Early signs and symptoms [include] slower responsive rates, or you start rubbing your feet, arms, or hands,” says Edley. “Keep your head warm, [your feet], your armpits, chest, [and even] your groin. These are places heat escapes from your body quickly.”

If you or someone you know is suffering from Hypothermia, Edley tells people to not drink hot liquids, as the person needs to gradually warm themselves. He also says that drinking alcohol and then venturing out into the cold is not a good idea, as causes the body’s core temperature to lower faster.

As for winter driving, Edley has a few tips on that as well.

“The AMA recommends having a basic first aid kit and thermal blankets,” says Edley. “Get winter tires, as they grip the road better, and know the ice, find out if [road conditions] are safe. The resource are there [to find out].”

So, to anyone who thinks they’ll be fine, or that they’ll only be out in the cold for a few minutes, take a moment to really think before you head out, as taking the extra few seconds to bundle up properly may very well save your life.

“In Canada, every seven minutes, a person will have a heart attack. 17,000 people die each year [from heart attacks],” says Valerie Fraser, who works with the Heart and Stroke Foundation in Medicine Hat. “We really push the importance of looking after our hearts.”

The best ways to take care of our hearts are pretty obvious, including not smoking, if you do drink, do so in moderation, limiting stress, and of course, exercise. These are things we’re all aware of, but many people don’t follow these simple guidelines that can help them live longer, and we need to.

“High on the list is smoking. Please don’t smoke; being inactive, high blood pressure and high cholesterol,” says Fraser. “Age, gender, family history are [also] general risk factors.”

Another risk factor to our general health and our hearts is stress, something we all deal with, and if we don’t take steps to handle it, it can have harmful effects on our bodies and our hearts.

“We all have stress in our lives, we need to learn to manage it,” says Fraser.

If you feel you are at risk for heart disease or heart attack, it’s very important that you go and see your doctor, and make him or her fully aware of your family history, so you can work to prevent a heart attack.

People need to take care of their bodies, and their hearts. If we don’t, we might not live as long of a life as we might like.

“You only get one body. You get one chance to take care of it,” says Fraser.

The Heart and Stroke Foundations also wants to remind students and those in Alberta communities, including Lethbridge, to volunteer their time to spread the word of the importance of taking care of our hearts and to raise money for the foundation.

“If students are interested in helping with the fundraiser, contact the Lethbridge [Heart and Stroke Foundation] office,” says Louise.

“Eating disorders are serious mental health issues and the only mental health issue in which people die, says Monica Hinton, who specializes in eating disorder treatment and is a counsellor at Lethbridge College. “The biggest factor with eating disorders is someone’s relationship with food and their body image–there is an intense fear of gaining weight and a severe body image distortion.

“There is not one reason why someone would be diagnosed with an eating disorder–it is a complex mix of genetics, temperament, social factors, family factors and media influences.

Hinton also says people with eating disorders cannot get better on their own, it’s impossible, they need a support team, including a physician, dietitian, therapist, [or] a support group [for] recovery.”

There are support groups within the city of Lethbridge. Talk to your doctor to find out where they are and when they meet.

The way we think about our bodies and our appearance can have a negative effect on every area of our life, according to Nedic.ca, the National Eating Disorder Information Centre.

“Thoughts, feelings and behaviours related to managing food and weight can begin to interfere with our everyday activities. When we focus too much attention on our bodies and our eating, our overall well-being can be drastically affected. [It] can also lead to severe physical and emotional problems.”

The NEDIC website also says that “an eating disorder signals that the person has deep emotional difficulties that they are unable to face or resolve.”

An eating disorder is often masking larger issues, such as feeling the inability to cope with a situation in their lives, and by manipulating what they eat, they regain a false sense of control, but it does not solve the real issues the person is trying to deal with.

There are a few well-known illnesses associated with eating disorders, which include Anorexia, Bulimia, and binge-eating.

Anorexia is “when [a person] lose a lot of weight because [they’re] hardly eating anything, and might over-exercise. [They] probably can’t or don’t admit how underweight [they] are. [They] may not initially look very thin, but may be far too thin to support [their] health.”

Bulimia is when a person eats, then quickly tries to get rid of the calories, so they won’t get “fat”. They might even make themselves vomit, use laxatives, or exercise far too often. Also, they will notice their body weight goes up and down frequently.

Another eating disorder is Binge Eating. This is “When [a person] eats so much [they’re] uncomfortable, eat to comfort [themselves], eat in secret, or keep eating as part of a meal or between meals. [They] feel a lot of shame or guilt about [their] eating.”

NEDIC also suggests that if you think you have an eating disorder, or if you have problems with your body image, talk to your doctor before you develop a possible eating disorder, and cause harm to your body.

SIDEBAR:

The NEDIC.ca website has a list of suggestions for those questioning their body weight and body image.

1. Criticize the culture that promotes unhealthy body image, not yourself

2. Look at Do not encourage or laugh at jokes that make fun of a person’s size or body

3. Avoid labelling food “bad,” “sinful,” or “junk food

4. Fight against the main cause of eating disorders – dieting

5. Get rid of your scale! Numbers can be deceiving. Listen to your body.

6. Tell the media what you think: they do listen.

“This year isn’t the anomaly, previous winters have been, says Dory Rossiter, skywatch weather specialist at CTV Lethbridge. “We’ve been spoiled in past years with nice temperatures and El Nino, but we haven’t had that this year. We haven’t been seeing Chinooks much this year.”

The month of December brought extreme wind chills and a record snowfall that left many people scrambling to get out of their driveways, never mind down the streets, and the city had to hire contractors to help get rid of the massive amounts of snow that had accumulated.

Rossiter explains that unlike previous winters, where southern winds and several high pressure systems have helped give southern Alberta in nicer temperatures for the most part; this year, we have more low pressure systems and northern winds, which has caused the temperatures to drop.

The month of December saw cold air kept being pushed down from the arctic, and northerly winds and a huge low pressure system that took forever to move east. As a result, we experienced several inches of snow and plummeting temperatures.

“We got locked into that northern air mass that extended [from] Vancouver Island and east to Winnipeg, and all the way down to Texas. It was huge,” explains Rossiter. “We keep getting these kinds of northern winds, [and] cold air masses coming from the artic,” says Rossiter. “It was a thick air mass. It took a lot of wind to take it across, it was an intense system.”

Now, that same air mass is hovering over central and eastern Canada, bringing them into the extreme double digits, and giving them a lot of snow and icy conditions.

Finally, in early January, we had a Chinook roll through, giving a reprieve from the bitter cold. Although Rossiter doesn’t think we’ll see any more record snowfalls, she makes it very clear that winter isn’t over yet.

In addition, Rossiter predicts next year’s winter will be similar to what we’ve had this year, though it’s impossible to give any specifics this early.

“Next year, [we should] see another version of this winter, but we will definitely have another ‘real’ winter. Buy your parkas while they’re on sale,” says Rossiter.

A definite upside to all the snow is that it should really help farmers avoid any dry spells.

“The snow packs will really help agriculture. It will be a good [year],” says Rossiter.

Browser toolbars are one example of a program being bundled with many free programs in recent years. The toolbars are a small rectangular bar that appears directly under the Address Bar in Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. Google has one, so does Yahoo, but many non-legit brands also have them available. Although they may be useful, some of these toolbars are tracking your internet surfing and computer habits.

Companies are looking for any way they can to save money, in paid or free software. A lot of software is now including the options to install other programs along with it, browser toolbars, and other little “extras”.

It takes only an extra few seconds to read each screen as a program installs on your computer. Each step may be asking you to install something you may not want, and many include checkboxes to give you the option. If you don’t uncheck those checkboxes, that extra program you just agreed to may just slow your system down.

I’ve heard it referred to as “next, next, next syndrome”, because many software installations include a “next” button at each step. Many have become so complacent, they don’t want to pay attention to what’s being asked, they just want to install the software so they can use it, and that’s just lazy.

Those few extra seconds of time spent reading and understanding what is being installed on your computer can honestly mean the difference of spyware, or in some cases, a virus, making its way on to your system, depending on how legitimate the program you are installing is.

Taking the time to understand exactly what you’re installing will also prevent extra programs from installing that can damage or crash your computer, or as many have noticed, they can also slow your system down to a crawl at times.

Another disadvantage to many software installations is they will ask the user if they want the program to automatically start each time you turn your computer on, which for many programs, is completely unnecessary. If you want to use a program, the user can start it yourself as they need it.

If there is a program on that starts up when your computer is turned on that you don’t want to be automatically running, press the “Windows logo key+R” and in the text box, type “msconfig” (without the quotes), and go to the “startup” tab, and uncheck anything you don’t want running when you turn the computer on.

To uninstall many of the extras, such as toolbars that you no longer want, left-click the Start Menu, click on “Control Panel”, then double-click “Add/Remove Programs” (Programs and Features in Windows Vista), click the program, and choose “Uninstall”.

Limited time has forced a lot of us to be very selective of the TV shows we do watch. The solution seems to be catching up on missed episodes via websites such as YouTube, and by other ways using the internet, allowing us to choose when we watch, instead of TV schedules dictating that for us.

That’s not to say TV will be going away anytime soon. The internet simply gives people additional options in terms of how they watch programming. When viewers have the opportunity to watch good ‘ol TV, they do.

“My first resource is TV. If I can’t, I watch it online. I don’t download, I watch it streaming,” says Jason Bass, a student at Lethbridge College.

Jason brings up a very good point. People are doing what they can to watch content legally. Some websites that stream programming to viewers are more legitimate than others, but viewers who want to watch U.S. programming, but can’t, are doing what they can to watch the content without getting themselves in legal hot water.

Many students are hoping that the major networks in the United States will soon start allowing residents in Canada the ability to watch and download their shows, and the idea of having control over how they watch that content and when is a very powerful motivator.

“If I could, I would watch it online or download it at my convenience,” says a very enthusiastic Chelsi Brisebois, a General Studies student at Lethbridge College.

TV stations in the U.S. and Canada are recognizing the changing television landscape and are offering their content online after their shows originally air for people to watch at their convenience, albeit with a 30-second ad before the show starts. All major Canadian broadcasters are included in this movement.

Many issues plague the possibility of watching U.S.-based content, including copyright issues, copy protection, and legal roadblocks, Many websites, including NBC and CBS, which are based in the United States, don’t stream or allow access to downloads of their programming across the border, forcing many to get that same content by other means.

An increasing number of TV shows and movies are available through alternative services, such as the iTunes Store, offered by Apple Inc, which allows those who have chosen to download content alternative legal ways of doing so.