Spring Break! Oh My!
It’s that time in the semester. Spring Break is here. My students are free of me for an entire week. I’d like to think they’ll miss me, but I also grade their work, so let’s be realistic. Freedom from my feedback is the real spring break.
With a week off from school, students, and grading, I can turn my attention to my passions. Streaming. Writing. My pups. I get to relax and enjoy life. A hum of anxiety follows me everywhere, but at least I can ignore it while playing video games on stream or staring at a Scrivener document I’ve convinced myself I’ll finish.
Only April remains after Spring Break. One month until I either embrace not teaching or renege on my confident declaration of not teaching again. Truth be told, I’m not as confident as I once was. I love teaching; I don’t always feel good at it. Some days the imposter syndrome wins. It whispers things like, ‘you’re not qualified,’ and ‘they’re just being polite,’ and ‘you used the wrong ‘there’ on that slide, didn’t you?’ The usual meanderings of an insecure teacher.
I ran into one of my mentors who mentioned students they now teach have sung my praises. I guess I’ve done something right somewhere along the way. Maybe confidence isn’t the point. Maybe my abundance of sarcasm and endless support sealed the deal. Maybe being good doesn’t require feeling good.
I’ve been job hunting for a life post-teaching, which is its own strange ritual. Scrolling job boards while grading papers. Updating a résumé for jobs I’m certain I don’t meet all the requirements for. Reading phrases like ‘fast-paced environment’ and ‘self-starter,’ wondering if those are skills or filler to hit a word count quota. It’s exhausting in a way no one talks about. The loop of searching, applying, and hoping. The mental labor of imagining yourself somewhere else while being exactly where you are.
In the meantime, between job hunting and teaching, I’ve picked up a second job as an audio consultant. I’m helping the Theatre Department of my University spec the sound for one of their spaces, and doing this made me realize how much I missed the work.
There’s a peace to it. The satisfaction of tracing a problem back to its source and fixing it with your hands. Sound engineering is the only time I’ve felt confident in a job. Not ‘I hope this works’ confident. Actually confident.
As I job hunt, a part of me wants to find my way back to production roles. Audio engineering or something close to it. But in 2026, I’m thirty-six. No longer a spring chicken. Most entry level production jobs get snatched up by young folks entering the working world, bright-eyed and willing to work at a pace I cannot keep up with.
Yet, here I am. Spec’ing a sound system.
As we get close to May 2026, I’m not worried about what will happen. It’s too late to. I’m thirty-six and, whether I have a job in production, streaming, writing, or even teaching, the worries I have are less about my career journey. That will work itself out.
It always does.
Jesús M. Rivera 