A Step Into the Unknown

In his novel, Dark Star, Alan Furst creates an atmosphere that supports the depressed and beat down setting surrounding Europe before the onset of World War II. He is able to capture our attention by immediately creating anxiety in the depressed and broken down country of Belgium. Furst is able to draw us into the mind of Andre Szara as he enters Ostend, Belgium, describing the atmosphere as unpleasant and anxiety-driven. He presents this atmosphere through the old and rusted freighter, Nicaea, the setting in Ostend, and the assignments that Szara must complete while staying in Ostend.

The thirty year old tugboat, Nicaea, represents an unforeseen road and ultimately places uncertainty in the eyes of Andre Szara. In the beginning, the atmosphere is immediately set with a dark and fearful outlook because of the depiction of the “tramp freighter” (Furst 3) that moves through the water with a distinctive roar of the engine, over powering the sound of clashing waves. The history of the Nicaea identifies the elements used by Furst to display atmosphere. It’s deep description indicates it has spent “blistering summers and drizzling winters” (3) over the years to be ruined by salt and rust. Old age has the ship “[creaking] and [groaning] sorrowfully” (4). The unhealthy environment creates an undesirable atmosphere that makes use of uncertainty as to whether the ship can carry on.

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The weather plays a major role in shaping the atmosphere in Ostend. The weather
can be used effectively when presenting a certain atmosphere because it can dictate the mood. While travelling on the North Sea, Szara and Khelidze were accompanied by “rain” (3) and “darkness” (3), unaware of what lies ahead. With darkness, comes the idea of fear because its leading to the unexpected. The Nicaea has also been at sea for nineteen days through an “eternity of icy, seawater showers” (5). The weather foreshadows a dark future and maintains the uncertainty of what lies ahead.
Equally important, Andre Szara is given an assignment but does not know why, further adding to the suspense and obliviousness for any consequences. Szara’s assignment is to find out where his fellow passenger on the tugboat, Grigory Khelidze, is staying in Ostend. Szara has no idea why he must find out where this man is staying, thus creating a sense of bewilderment. It is as if Szara has been set out on to a winding and unforgiving path that leaves no indication or signs as to where it will lead him. Many questions are asked as to why he is given this assignment as because it foreshadows that there is a long road ahead and it may not be the last of his assignments. To further extend the suspense, the man giving the assignment is known as the “World’s Plainest Man” (4). Furst is able to communicate these ideas through the use of atmosphere by his ability to create suspense and anxiety and allow us to wonder what these motives will lead to.
Upon receiving instructions for his next assignment, Szara is frightened because he does not know what to expect. The instructions to meet at a certain place “frightened him” (9) and questions involving his assignment rose with distinctiveness. The atmosphere creates possibility; the possibility of Szara dealing with the wrong people and

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ending up dead in a dark and deserted alley. As the readers, we feel his fear and, like him, are unable to see where or what this situation will lead to. Thoughts of running went through Szara‘s mind because of the amount of uncertainty he faced. “Fly for your life” (9) he thought because things like this always worked out to an unpleasant ending. The original “small favor” (9) is growing into something beyond his control and is now part of the secrecy within a spy agency because of the knowledge he obtains doing these assignments.

Furthermore, we see that the description Ostend, Belgium creates a bitter and depressing atmosphere. Walking the streets, the smell of “fish, urine, fried onions” (10) takes over the senses and disgusts ones inner feelings about the place. The roads are made up of “narrow streets” (10) with limited access for mobility and escape. The feeling of entrapment overcomes the atmosphere and we are able to see that Ostend is thrown together in a harsh and dissonant manner.
At the closure of his stay in Ostend, Szara’s eyes are met with a faint smile from the man in the car. “Here is the world, said the smile” (15), leaving Szara speechless and overtaken by a disrupted path leading to his future. At this point, anxiety descends into the atmosphere, creating the feeling of helplessness and sorrow because he must embrace this new position not knowing what the future holds. This leaves the readers to believe that the dark and aghast road that Szara was put on, has only just begun.

In conclusion, Alan Furst’s attention to detail creates an atmosphere that exemplifies the depressed and anxiety-ridden state of Europe. From the decisive description of the Nicaea, the dark and ambient weather portrayed, the unknown and upscale assignments presented to Andre Szara, and to the unexplained figures that are keeping Szara under close radar we see a significant plot develop that shapes how the novel is presented. The atmosphere creates significance because we are able to feel the discomfort that Szara must endure and we see the setting unfold into an unpleasant and displeasing arrangement.

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Extra Money Using the Internet

We all incline toward the cash that is earned through our own effort and hard work. However, several times this cash is not near enough to pay our bills or purchase something extra other than our daily need products. If you are one of those finding different ways to make extra money then you are at right place. You need not to feel bad and shy if you are currently not having any work or if you need more money. We are here to let you know how to make money via internet.
Here are the few very simple ways to make extra money without spending a lot, what you need is to just have an internet connection:

Advertising and Selling Via E Bay

E-Bay is one of the most prevalent ways to make extra money as online shopping is getting more popular consistently. About 167 million shoppers were shopping online in 2012. Experts say that this number will increase to 25% by 2016. Numerous individuals are using E-bay to purchase and sell their stuff. I am certain that you can find out a pack of stuff at your home that you don't utilize. In place of discarding your unused attire or things, create an E-Bay profile and begin searching for potential buyers. Simply put a practical and fascinating price that will catch the purchaser’s attention. This strategy requires negligible effort and you can get some robust profit from it.

Blogging

Provided that you are great with words and you know how to compose an attractive matter then it is the ideal opportunity to share that to the entire planet and get good profit. Don't be hesitant to begin a blog and write on the topics you are most knowledgeable at and interested in. Keep you blog well maintained and update it daily with a new and unique article. If you succeed in doing so, you will definitely get some ads on your blog and it will prove to be a good way to make money online. You can apply on many online ad sites like Google Adsense or Chitika or whatever viable PPC system to get ads on your blog and they will positively acknowledge you in their program when you have remarkable stuff on your blog. The more guests you have, the more cash will rush into your pocket. This is one of the acceptable ways to make extra money.

Be a Freelancer:

Do you know anything about oDesk, Fiverr or Freelancer.com? These are some of the prominent websites which can help you connect to the world and sell your services to the buyers around the globe. This is the way these sites typically work: the purchaser imparts freely what he needs and the sellers or freelancers offer their service for a certain measure of cash after which the buyers pick the most efficient offer. I also encourage you to make a proficient looking profile and begin searching for purchasers. You might as well offer your services for lower costs until you are built as a high appraised seller. Once you establish yourself as a reputed freelancer you can charge high. This is the way I am earning a lot and suggest you as one of the finest ways to make extra money.

Affiliate Marketing

This is among the most popular alternate ways to make extra money which can emerge as profitable work for you. However, you must keep in mind that it requires time. The biggest thing is that you don't need to invest much. What you require is just a domain name, a hosting service provider and a basic website. Affiliate Marketing is a technique in which you have to resell things for different organizations utilizing your site. You will get commission from each sold item and many times this commission is quite high. Companies offering such services are Amazon, Clickbank etc. Many people are selling goods and found it as one of the most effective ways to make extra money.

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The Impact of Attending Seminars

The study tackles about “The Impact of Attending Seminars to the Development of the Analytical Skill of the Financial Management Students”. The discussion started by introducing what is seminars and its main purpose. Seminars help a lot to spread and inform the people about new informations and ideas. It provides also opportunities to the attendees to meet and know formal persons in different industries. The importance of seminars could also enhance skills of the attendees specifically the analytical skill of a person. In a way that the person will be more motivated to think and plan for their future because they were motivated by the new ideas they learn from the speakers. This paper also discusses the impacts of the seminars and this was proven by the result of the surveys which the respondents rated. Ending this paper is the conclusion about the what could be the influence of the seminars and how can it will motivate people to attend seminars.

Seminars are bringing up a small group to discuss a particular subject requiring the attendee to actively participate. The importance of seminars to the analytical skill of financial management students are being shared and learned. From the study of John Whilttaker (n.d.) the financial analytical and negotiating skills of the students are being developed. Another study done by Jean-Marc Hackey(n.d.), information exchanges exist in the seminars. The speaker who shares and discuss with his/her experiences also learned from the opinion of the listeners or the attendees.

The skills of the financial management students are being developed including the study of Naran (2002), the logical reasoning of the attendee. In a way that the attendees like students learn to study, examine and have a fully understood of the text or the subject to come up with a good conclusion to their work. Another skill benefited by the seminars are the thinking skills of the attendees, the listeners became more critical in thinking and analyzing. In addition from Cortell (n.d.) the evaluation and weighing up of text, opinion, arguments and solutions of the attendee’s improve.

Those who will be attending the said seminar will also be benefited by developing this analytical leadership. By the study of Jeanne Harris and Elizabeth Craig (n.d.), their analytical leadership covers the unique qualities of a leader. Analytical leadership also takes steps to care, develop and retain the core skills of a person to fully develop into an analytical leadership skill.

Base on the study of Rao(n.d.) seminars also help students to build their own motivation inspired by the shared experiences of the speakers. Motivation is one factor for students to pursue what they want to achieve. The attendee of seminars were always being inspired by the speakers because of the their motivated experiences that give hope to the attendee to do the same or not exactly what the speaker do but to follow the steps.

Seminars according to Peeler (2007) it motivate students to set agenda which they may consider to be done so they will have guide and to analyze critically what the students want to come up.
The researchers come up with the study about the impact of attending seminars to the financial management students because they believe that this study would be an eye opener to the students how important the seminars are. Attending seminars may give good benefits to the students. The benefits that the students could get from attending seminars may include students learned new skills, students improve their level of leadership and they learn how to have a sense of community.

The reason why the researchers believe that attending seminars has a huge influence to the development of the skills of the students because some people including the researchers already knows that attending different kinds of seminars are also a way of learning in different aspects. Seminars are being done in different ways just to let the seminar attendees to learn also in a different way. Some seminars are done by having games, the sharing of the speakers’ experiences and the teaching of the facts about the theme of the seminars.

Through the use of questionnaires as the medium of survey to the financial management students the researchers came up with a superior result. Most of the students had experience attending seminars and conventions. In addition, most of the financial management students agree that seminars could enhance analytical skills and they strongly agree that they must acquire high analytical skills.

Descriptive research is defined as, used to describe characteristics of a population or phenomenon being studied according to the dictionary Heneman (n.d.). The reason why the researchers used descriptive research as the type of research, because the researchers wants to know what are the characteristics and what are the impacts of attending seminars to the development of the analytical skills of the students.

According to Jean-Marc, students would be empowered and encouraged to undertake global career skill-building strategies after listening to the seminars he is conducting. On this statement he stated, he focused on saying that how seminars are important to the students and for their future. This study focuses on what is the impact of attending seminars to the development of the analytical skills of the first year students.

The first process that the researchers did was to search for related studies which are related on their topic. After analyzing the related studies of this research the researchers conducted a survey to know if the financial management students have a background about what are seminars and what are the effects of attending seminars. Once the survey was done and all the needed information was gathered the researchers made the tallying of the variables. The variables used by the researchers are the names of the respondents which are optional, the year level of the respondents and the gender. The researchers also computed for the percentage of each of the variables.

The questionnaires are the materials used by the researchers to gather information by their respondents. The respondents of the researchers are the first year students, second year students and the third year students. In order to know if all the male and female financial management students have experienced attending seminars and conventions and if they learn more if there is several speakers on one topic the researchers included this query on the given questionnaires to the respondents.

From the male and female, first year, second year and third year respondents of the researchers, one hundred percent or all of the respondents had experienced already attending seminars and conventions.

As being illustrated in the first graphs are about the result of the survey if the students have already experience attending seminars and conventions. As a result even by gender hundred percent of male and female agreed that they already experience attending seminars. In measure by respondents according to year level first, second and third year respondent students agreed hundred percent because they all already experience attending seminars. From the result of the survey it says that anyone can experience attending seminars maybe because everybody has the freedom to attend and exercise their right to be one of the attendees of seminars. In relation to this is the study of Hamby (2006) that everyone has the freedom to attend seminars to also gain knowledge from the sharing of the speakers of the seminars.

From the male and female, first year, second year and third year respondents of the researchers, one hundred percent or all of the respondents had experienced already attending seminars and conventions.

As being illustrated in the first graphs are about the result of the survey if the students have already experience attending seminars and conventions. As a result even by gender hundred percent of male and female agreed that they already experience attending seminars. In measure by respondents according to year level first, second and third year respondent students agreed hundred percent because they all already experience attending seminars. From the result of the survey it says that anyone can experience attending seminars maybe because everybody has the freedom to attend and exercise their right to be one of the attendees of seminars. In relation to this is the study of Hamby (2006) that everyone has the freedom to attend seminars to also gain knowledge from the sharing of the speakers of the seminars.

Another statement which is to be asked to the male and female, first year, second year and third year respondents is if they strongly agree, agree, strongly disagree and disagree by the statement “seminars could enhance analytical skills”. Male respondents have 67% strongly agree that seminars could enhance their analytical skills and 43% of them do not. The female respondents who has 64% of the strongly agree and the 36% of them do not. The survey confirms that 50% of the first year respondents strongly agree and another 50% of the first year respondents agree that seminars could really enhance analytical skills. Sixty percent of the second year respondent’s strongly agree and 40% of them just agree. The highest percentage of the students who strongly agree came from the third year students which has 78.50% and 21.50 for the agree column.

The third graphs illustrate the result from the survey regarding the effect of attending seminars if it could enhance the analytical skill of the attendees no one disagreed with the statement. According to the result by gender all agreed but there were percents who strongly agreed with the statement. In male has larger percent who strongly agree than female maybe because males are more attentive during seminars that’s why their skills are being exercised when the speaker starts to share their experiences and learnings in life that males really cherish. According to the result of the survey by year level, there is also no percent who disagreed with the statement maybe because they understand every detailed and analyze every statements, ideas and experiences that the speaker share. But the third year level got the highest percentage who strongly agreed with the statement that seminars could enhance analytical skills. Maybe the reason behind was third year students has already attended several seminars besides from they are older than the two year levels and they had already attended several seminars through the years of their studying they already exercised their analytical skills in analyzing the different ideas they learn from the different experiences of the speakers to be also like them in the future. This study can be compare to Tahir (2012) that seminars could really enhance skills including analytical skills. Because in seminars you need to have peace of mind to attentively listen to the speaker so that the attendees could learn a lot from the speakers experiences and help the attendees to visualize if he or she can fulfil what the speaker already done if ever the attendee wants to follow the path of the speaker.

Male respondents has a percentage of 42% for strongly agree, 58% for agree and none of them strongly disagree and disagree. The 53% of female respondents just agree and 39% of the strongly agree and 4% for the strongly disagree and disagree. First year respondents has a percentage of 38% for strongly agree, 57% for agree, 5% for strongly disagree and none of them disagree. Most of the second year respondents agreed that seminars are necessary for the first year students which got a 67% and 33% of the remaining second year respondents strongly agree. The third year respondents, has a percentage of 46% for strongly agree and agree column and remaining 8% disagree that seminars are necessary for the first year students.

From the result or the survey regarding that it is necessary for the first year students to attend seminars. According to gender by males, fourty-two percent strongly agree and fifty-eight percent agree and by females thirty-nine percent strongly agree, fifty-three agree, four percent disagree and four percent strongly disagree. The result from the survey prove that majority of the respondents even by gender strongly agree with the statement. According to first year students which the statement focuses thirty- three percent strongly agree and sixty-seven agree, this prove that the respondents or subject of the statement agree about it. From the higher level second and third year students majority of them agree that’s why seminars should be one of the activity of the first year students. This study can be compared to Wasan’s (2002) that students are required to have experience such formal gathering like seminar to also improve their social skills and at the same time they will learn new ideas that may help students.

The male respondents agreed that students analytical skills can be develop even if they are not attending any seminars and conventions which gets a 50% from the male respondents, 33% and 17% of them strongly agree and disagree respectively. In another hand, most of the female respondents just agree with a percentage of 64%, 29% for the strongly agree and 3.5% for strongly disagree and disagree. First year respondents has a percentage of 31.83% for strongly agree, 50% for agree and 9.09% for strongly disagree and disagree in the statement about “students analytical skills can be developed even if they are not attending any seminars and conventions”. The second year respondents have 35.70 % and 64.30% for strongly agree and agree respectively. One hundred percent of the third year students or simply all of them agreed in this statement.

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Chat Rooms and Online Communities

Online communities? What are they? Well I’m not too sure. One thing I can tell you is that when I hear those words I usually think of chat rooms. I am sure you know that if you go online one of the things you can do is go into the chat rooms. In fact, one of the first things I did when I first go America Online was go into a chat room. I remember my friends telling me how much fun it was. I wondered what was so fun about it. f I wanted to talk to someone why wouldn’t it be more exciting to just pick up the phone and call some one or just get together with some of my friends. My friends would tell me that it was fun because you could talk to people all over the world.

One of the first things you must do before being able to join a chat room is create a screen name. This is a process I think is really fun. There are billions of names you can choose; although you quite annoying when you finally pick a name only to find out that some one else has already picked that name. I have always found screen names interesting because I think they give you an inside look to the people you can not see. If you meet some one for the first time it might appeal to you to talk to them because you like their screen name.

When I went online after picking my screen name, I then had an even harder task. Now I had to decide on which room I wanted to go into. It did not take me long to figure out that the regular chat rooms offered were not that interesting; at least not to me. I then went to the section of chat rooms that are made by people themselves. There are millions of categories. I think that there is a category out there for everyone.

One thing that I did find weird was that if you went into a certain category once you got inside there was usually no one talking about that subject. What I did figure out was that even though people might not be talking about the subject they all usually have similar interest. So usually you can get along with them because you will know that they like at least one thing you do too.

One of the chat rooms that I went in was the “Gothic” chat room. Most people in there were gothic. They all had names that had something to do or at least seemed to be gothic in a way. One question that frequently come up was people asking, “What is Goth,” and then of course the chat room regulars would start trying to answer the question and what it meant to them personally.

One of the reasons I think people go online to chat is because it gives you the chance to be anyone you want. A person who might have low self-esteem or be shy might feel comfortable enough to start talking to other people. I suppose it is kind of fun to be able to talk to people from all over the world. Also, many kids go online because when you are young most parents will not let you go out at night. Kids usually have nothing to do so they find it as an entertaining way to pass time. I did find out that a lot of the people online chatting seemed to be kids.

The language used in chat rooms varies from person to person. There are a lot of people in the gothic room that talked using big words and sound scholarly but then of course you had some people using street talk, slang and bad language. Another thing that is funny about online chatting is that people like to find ways to communicate faster so they invent smaller words like brb which stands for be right back. Also they have come up with ways of showing there emotions; lol which is the most frequently used one stands for laughing out loud. A new thing is the yellow smiley faces that can frown, smile, cry and many more cute faces .

I can see in a way why chat rooms would become addicting in a way. You might find some people over time you form a bond with. They turn into real friends except that you probably will not know what they look like. Although now a days I think that chatting has become funner because now people can meet each other and send pictures to each other. So now when you make a friend it’s not as mysterious. Some people like chatting because if you keep going back to the same room you see the same people and before you know it they become your friends. The room because a sort of “hang-out” for you.

Even though chat rooms have their pluses the only thing I think is bad about them is that people can lie to you and pretend to be something they are not. Also there have been many cases where older men try to get young children to meet with them. Our government needs to learn to move with technology and come up with new fair laws to help deal with computer crimes. Until humans learn to be more honest with each
other when chatting with each other then we can not assume that it is completely safe.

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