All mixed up.

I told my brother that I won't be around for his wedding reception. But at 11 am, I was at my father's house and everybody started asking...

This is actually what happened. Please bear with me as I go around the bush to lay the fault on others. Kih kih kih.

I learned English from standard 1 in 1974 until form 5 1984. From a,an and the to vocabularies. To say that I mastered my English, is an overstatement. I understood spoken English. Written English? hmmm..

Then in 1985, I took ESL and TOEFL. Then only I came across American English. All those years I thought every Mat Saleh speak English that I know. Suddenly I made a lot of spelling errors and realised that certain words have two ways of spelling. One is British English and the other one is the American English or American way. It is no laughing matter. The Americans, as I was told, like to be different from the British. Serious.

That their roadways is the exact opposite of what I used to in Malaysia was not new to me as I watched o lot of American movies on tv.

Then came the sports. I realised that they are a bunch of low self-esteem people who claimed that their national champion is the World Champion. Phew! Certain sports they don't even play against other countries in a world cup tournament, yet they claim to be the World Champion. Luckily they never became champion in the World Cup of Football, or soccer as they call it. And they have a game which is called Football. And the funny thing was that it was played using hand. Hehehe. They confused between foot and hand. Hahaha.

What else?

Ha ah... The way they write the date. We are used to have day/month/year where as the Americans write it with this format: month/day/year. The famous one is of course the 9/11.

Last Saturday, I drove all the way from Melaka to Royale Bintang in Seremban for a Leadership Seminar. It was a one day seminar, the same day that my brother getting married. I reached the hotel around 8.20 and waited for others to arrive. It was almost 9 when I didn't see any familiar faces and a check with the reception, I was told that the seminar that I was to attend was not listed as one of the functions that day. So I called my boss.

Me: Hey boss, I thought the seminar supposed to start at 9. No  familiar faces around and the hotel staff told me that there was no booking.

Boss: what seminar?

Me: The Leadership Seminar


Boss: That one ah! It is on the April 2nd, not today...

You see...

How could I know that 4/2/2012 is April 2nd, 2012. One day after April Fool.