I write you from the chair at the endodontist’s office where I will shortly be on the receiving end of a drill to the face. My mouth is already half numb. Once upon a time I still thought I’d be getting back on trail quickly enough, I was distraught to find I had not only my ankle but also a tooth to wait on. Now I know the ankle isn’t going to be ready to hike this year, so I guess I’m glad I’m getting the dental procedure taken care of before my insurance runs out.

Once I’m recovered from this, I’m taking off in a car I acquired this morning and heading to Washington to do trail magic.

So how does one go about teaching English in a foreign country? Well, like any job one would do in a foreign country, I will have to fill out some paperwork, get a visa etc. My German is not, and likely will not be good enough to easily figure that out on my own, but luckily I’ll have Enterprise to help me out.

English Teaching Specifics

There’s a certification to get called TEFL – Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Not every position strictly requires a TEFL. The one job I’ve looked closest at so far does not require the certification for example, though I’m sure my application would be a bit stronger if I do go through the official motions. The downside? Well first of all, there’s no one official recognized accreditation for those who teach TEFL certification classes, so I have to make sure I pick the right one. Other downside? The cost. A quick google search shows me many courses I could take if I had a thousand dollars or more to spend, which I don’t right this second.

Honestly I’m kind of tempted to skip the TEFL for now. I did study language pedagogy in college after all, and if I can get a job teaching English online here and now then I can brush up my skills and strengthen my CV without spending a bunch of money upfront that I might not necessarily even have to be spending.

I’ve  sent an email to the professor I studied applied linguistics with back in college, and I hope to sit down and talk through these plans with him. He was my advisor for all my language teaching internships back in college, so I trust his advice, plus I’m hoping he’ll be a reference for me. Bonus: he’s a German professor in addition to applied linguistics, so if a German company does contact him, he’ll be the one and only one of my references who can communicate with them in the German language.

The most difficult thing I’ve had to do all summer was to turn around and hike south to Tuolomne Meadows. It was painful of course, but that’s not what made it hard. Knowing when to turn back, that’s the challenge.

Knowing when to stay off trail has also proved a challenge. Once my ankle stopped hurting in town I thought I could handle the trail and hitched out of South Lake Tahoe, but it didn’t take long to realize that continuing to hike would not have been a smart choice. And so here we are over a month later and I’m still off trail and finally certain that I will not in fact make it to Canada this year. Time to pick some new challenges for myself.

I will finish the PCT next year, and after that I will move to Germany (tell you more about that one later). To accomplish both will require some hustle, but I know I can do it. At the moment I’m at my mom’s house and have started picking up freelancing work again. I know my grand overarching plans obviously, but I’m not yet clear on every single step that needs to be taken.

While I work on breaking down PCT and Germany goals into smaller bite-sized pieces, here’s one final important bite-sized goal: I am challenging myself to write here every day. I’m not promising fine artistic work, nor am I promising something as long as this post every day, but I’m going to write something. Maybe that’ll even end up helping with the other goals, who knows. If nothing else, there’s a certain sense of accountability that comes from being honest about what I’ve done to work towards Germany and towards finishing the PCT.

If it’s not one thing it’s the other. My ankle’s finally more or less hikable (not 100% still, but I like to think I’d be able to hike on it…. geeze how long does a stupid sprained ankle take to heal???), but now apparently I need a root canal, and I need it Now. So at this point, I’ve been off trail all of July, and between the still recovering ankle, the dental procedure itself, the recovery time, PCT Days, and my family reunion, I’m afraid I won’t be getting much hiking done in August either. Which leads me to worry… am I going to even have the slightest shot of finishing this trail this year?

And if I don’t finish the PCT this year… what then? Try again next year I suppose, but will I feel like a thru-hiker if I just start from where I tripped and hike north? Or will I feel the need to start completely over? And what does that mean for my post-trail moving-to-Germany plans. (PS, have I mentioned? No, I haven’t, not here at least, but I’m moving to Germany once I’m done with this trail. More on that later).

My life feels so up in the air right now. I know I want to walk to Canada, and I know I’m going to Germany after that. Don’t know much else though. I guess I’ll figure it out.