Saint Andrew's Day and ...... The Tartan Epsilon Head for Glasgow

Today’s post is going to be short and to the point: our subject is Saint Andrew, whose day we celebrate today. Andrew, whose name comes from the Greek andreia, meaning manhood or valour, was born early in the 1st century AD in Galilee and was the older brother of Peter. They were both fishermen and became disciples of Christ. 

Andrew is called the Protokletos, the first called, that is, he was the first one invited to follow Jesus as an apostle - from apostolos, one who has a mission - to spread the word.  The reference to fish crops us several times in the Bible. Jesus called Andrew and Peter to him, saying he would make them ‘fishers of men’. It was Andrew who apparently told Jesus about the boy with the 5 loaves and 2 fishes which were miraculously to feed the multitude of 5,000. After the fishermen complaining there were no fish one evening, Jesus was able to cast the net and bring in a huge haul.

 Perhaps the most linguistically interesting is the fish symbol which represented Christianity. Christians are said to have taken the Greek word for the fish – Ichthys – and turned it into the acrostic: Iesous Christos Theou  Yios Soter – which means Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. By using the fish symbol, Christians could secretly identify one with the other and indicate where meetings were going to be held.

There are references to Andrew preaching along the Black Sea shores, going on to Kiev and Novgorod. Consequently he is the Patron Saint of Ukraine, Romania and Russia. He is said to have founded, in AD 38, the See of Byzantium, which was later to become Constantinople, then Istanbul. Accounts have him preaching in Thrace, and in Achaea where, in the city of Patras, he was martyred by crucifixion.

Tradition has it he asked to be bound to the X-shaped cross, or saltire, as he felt unworthy of being put on the same type of cross as Jesus was. Most of his relics are kept in the Church of St Andrew at Patras where there is a special celebration every year on this day, the 30^th of November, his name-day.

 Below you can see a screen-shot of today’s post on our app Facebook page to mark the day.

           

 And Stop Press news: Angeliki Apostolidou and I – and doesn’t she have an appropriate surname for a day like today? – have been invited to present at the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language Conference in Glasgow in April 2017 - yesssss!  Looking forward to that already!

Outreach Program: Kosice, Slovakia and IST College, Athens

Having completed our stay in Kosice, we drive back to Bratislava, once more marveling at those impressive castles etched out against the blue sky. As we drive through areas with industrial plant, we see less salubrious living quarters for the employees there.

         

 

At least here the bright colours make these houses less dismal.  Next, this impressive building in the centre of Bratislava is newsworthy for currently housing the Council of the European Union, for the duration of the Slovak Presidency, July to December 2016.

              

                    

 

Before our flight out, we plan a memorable lunch on the banks of the Danube, but the miasma the river exuded has us staggering into the old city instead. There we relax, eating and drinking in the central square where everyone is enjoying the sunshine.                                                                    

                       

               

                                      

Within the week, The Tartan Epsilon are on the move again, this time closer to home - in Athens, well much closer for Angeliki! Our venue was the Independent Studies of Science and Technology College in Moschato, our host was Dr Paschalis Chliaras.  We had offered a choice of two topics as a proposal and our charming host requested both! ‘Constructing a CV ‘ may sound rather dry, but our participants seemed to have fun ordering possible section headings, then matching content to section on our specially designed magnetic boards - always popular, those!

               

                      

 

Similarly, the thought of being interviewed is not an appealing one and our participants confessed to feeling anxious when asked to take part in our mini-role-play. Their feedback as interviewees and interviewers was really interesting.

Sometimes an interviewer can toss a curve-ball question to test the mettle of the candidate. My curve-ball experience was in a job interview at Forrester High School, then the largest comprehensive school in the country, located near the local prison. The Deputy Headmaster asked me to go and lock his office door. My ‘Why?’ question met the answer that he had a bottle of whisky in the drawer. When he asked me why I simply laughed in response, I decided to counter in similar tenor: that I always had that effect on older men. Slapping his thigh, he informed me I was the first person not to get up and lock the door. When I asked him what he understood from that he told me the job was mine.  Despite the challenging professional circumstances there, I accepted the job there and then. I can truly say that it was there I really learned the tools of my trade, and enjoyed unswerving support from management.Back to our presentation: for our participants to wind down after their exertions, we played them the You-Tube video, The Candidate, a wonderful compilation of authentic interview scenarios by Heineken.   It’s a must-see, tremendously entertaining example of how to implement curve-ball strategies!

                                     

                                           

 

We round off the week-end - and my trip to Athens- with Angeliki and her delightful family, having a delicious meal at a Cretan tavern – memorable!