The Jennifer Blogs

One week from today is April Fool’s Day. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.



When I was a kid, my little brother and I used to love to play tricks on each other. I have to admit -- he got me every time! He was a far better jokester than I was. When we were about 8 or 9 he came to the door screaming as I walked in from playing with the neighbor across the street,
"Jen! Jen! You’ll never guess who won the Lottery!"

"Who? Not Mom?"

"No...guess again." (I assume he felt it would be too much of a stretch to tell me our mother won the Lottery. And he always made me, "guess again.")
I never did guess it, so he just out and told me, "Veda!" (My mom’s best friend)

I was flipping out...imagining that Veda was going to spread the wealth and I could buy that Barbie Dream House (or whatever I was wishing for at that particular moment in time).
Then he brought me back to reality.
"APRIL FOOLS!!!"



Another year he taped the handle on the sink hose so that when I turned the faucet on I got doused!



I only pulled two really good April Fools Pranks my entire life. I was doing mornings for a radio station in Huntsville, AL and two years in a row, I played a joke on my listeners. The whole morning show was in on it, but I was the one who dreamed up the ideas.



The first year we told people that there were several traffic lights in the city that had new signal sensors. You had to blow your horn to get the light to change. We even had a cop call us who told us that he was off duty, but that we got him hook, line and sinker. It was all fun and no one got hurt.



But the next year I really pissed people off. I told them, "remember -- thanks to Bill 105A (or whatever we named it), you have to have your taxes turned in by midnight tonight, or file an extension. In my mind, the worst that would happen is people would get their taxes done two weeks early.



Oh noooo ... some people actually turned around and headed back home, called in sick (or late) to work, and proceeded to do their taxes. My boss got serious complaints and someone even wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper about how careless the radio station was to allow that kind of joke on the air. The general manager was SO mad at us -- me specifically. So anyway ... remember when you turn your radio on one week from today -- April 1st -- not to believe everything you hear. Don’t believe everything your friends tell you. And be careful when walking around the corner at the office. You never know ...

My husband is a safety trainer/consultant. That is why we are in Japan. He is working with a Japanese-owned company on a project they are building in Singapore. This short stint in Japan is for the planning phase of the project. We are leaving April 12th for Singapore for the actual construction. It will take about 2 1/2 years.



That’s the brief history.



Part of my husband’s job is to train people in safety procedures. He has to put together presentations, and often uses Power Point to get his ideas across. Usually he builds his own, but sometimes he is given presentations to "tweak" and make his own. 

Recently he got one from a Japanese colleague. I giggled when he showed me that the presentation he was given said to "crick here" to go to the next page.



*** Please know that I am not making fun of Japanese people or their attempt at speaking our language. Lord knows they can speak English way better than I can speak Japanese. But I’m childish and immature and still laugh at fart jokes.

I am not Japanese, and I hate that every website out there thinks I am! Just because I'm in Japan and my IP address shows that I am in Japan, all these websites I visit think they need to default to Japanese writing. It even occasionally happens on MySpace. I go to log in and can't figure out where I start typing. It's happened enough here, though, that I can maneuver my way through the site to make it go back to English.



Tonight I was updating my books on Good Reads and had to figure out how to do it there. I ended up having to sign out and sign back in again. Not so bad.



Sometimes it also happens on Amazon.com.

It's nice that these websites are trying to be accommodating -- "Let's give her Japanese instead of making her find it on her own." But I wish they'd let me just have my English!



I'm also kind of not happy that every website out there knows my IP address. They know that I'm in Japan, and some websites even discriminate against me because I'm in Japan. For instance, there are some radio stations I can't listen to online because they know I'm in Japan and they don't allow you to listen to them outside the US. Same thing with some TV station websites -- won't let me watch videos because of the same reason.



Oh well. If I could have learned to speak Japanese in my five and a half months here, I would have, but this isn't exactly an easy language to learn. But at least I can order chicken rice and water. I'm keeping fed.

Before moving to Japan I was well aware that the Japanese have a tough time pronouncing the letter "L." It just does not exist in their vocabulary! So, before we moved here, our friend Chris pointed out that we might be coming during their pubric erections (public elections - har har har).

I thought that was hilarious. Then when we got here and found out it really is time to vote in some new officials we realized we really did get here during erection season.



Until today that was one of my favorite Japanese mispronunciations. Tonight we had dinner with a family that I am absolutely IN LOVE WITH! Marso works with the guy whose family we went out with tonight. It was our first time meeting his wife and I have to say that she is my new best friend. She is the Japanese version of me! Seriously! If you've ever heard that Japanese people don't really have a sense of humor, you're right. But they forgot to tell this woman she wasn't supposed to crack jokes. And her husband is exactly the same way!



So anyway, we were talking about music at dinner tonight and she pointed out that her husband does enjoy rock music from America. In fact, he's very fond of Eric Crapton. That's my new favorite mispronunciation!



Crap your hands! Stomp your feet!