Originally Posted by OccultHawk

I loved it. Hours everyday were spent in solitude with my Walkman and booze walking from job to job through rice fields and I knew several little spots where I could sit next to the sea and nobody ever once came walking by. I found two abandoned temples that I would could easily enter. I spent hours in there listening to Coltrane. One had part of the roof missing from a typhoon I figured and I could lay in there and watch the sky. I had an ALT / JET gig and they didn’t give a **** what I did. I’d just say I’m off to such and such elementary school. Drop by and give some kids a high five and then roll off. They were paying me to nomad around these tiny villages. At first they offered to drive me everywhere but I always refused.


One time for some reason I had to stay a week in a mid size city when I had that job. There were like 7 other ALT/JETs who had to do it too. We had private hotel rooms like a quarter mile from the office we had to meet in. All we had to do was check in, do whatever we wanted all day, and then check out. We could leave or just hang out there in a room just for us reading and bull****ting. And this one American girl actually chewed out our boss and told him she refused to check in and out. I tried to talk to her. I told her it was just a bureaucracy. He was told by his boss we had to be there. If we refused he got in trouble and it was a real job for him. She still said **** that no matter how good something is you should try to make it better. I understand the girl was bothered by the lack of rhyme and reason to the situation but it was like seriously we’re getting paid to say good morning and goodnight. I mean ****. I ****ing loved it though. I sat around and read books all day that week. The other English teachers all hated me. They would whisper lunch plans and not invite me. I didn’t know why but I didn’t give a **** either. I didn’t eat one meal or go for drinks with any of them once.