TOADTalk: Life as a Choose Your Own Adventure Book
The decisions we think will be momentous often are not, while little decisions can change the course of our lives. Theana Synder shared how forks in the road unexpectedly changed her course.
Monday morning’s All-School Assembly launches with the Teacher On Active Duty (TOAD) sharing something of interest—a reflection, a story or song, a demonstration of some sort, or a simple poem. In this way, every week, the community gets to know one of our own a little better. This week, Theana Snyder was the TOAD. Theana joined the Thacher faculty in 2001 as a math teacher and has filled many additional roles over the years. Currently, she advises freshman girls and is on the dorm faculty for Casa. Her TOADTalk is featured below.
How many of you have ever read a Choose Your Own Adventure book? In case you haven’t, I’ll briefly explain: these are books that you don’t read from cover to cover. Instead, you make choices along the way to determine the story. If you choose to fight the dragon, turn to page 7. If you choose to avoid the dragon and return to the forest, turn to page 34. I read these books quite a bit when I was little. They were pretty morbid. Most of the time, my story would end because I’d made the wrong choice and died.
As I was growing up, I felt like my life would be determined by big decisions similar to a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I thought that I would be completely aware of the decision (and the weight of it)—after all, the entire point was for me to always pick the choice that didn’t lead me toward certain death.
To attend Scripps College, turn to page 84. To attend Colorado College, turn to page 12.
The first time that I remember being aware of a “big choice” was when I was trying to decide what college to attend. As some of you know, I grew up in Hawaii. The colleges that I applied to were all out of state. I was trying to decide between two colleges—one in California, Scripps College, which I’d had the opportunity to visit the previous summer, and one in Colorado, Colorado College, which I had never seen. This decision seemed so big and final and it seemed so hard to make an informed choice. I had never flown by myself to the mainland before, but I decided it was important to take the 5,000 mile trip to see Colorado College. When I called the Colorado College admissions office to help me plan my stay, they weren’t very helpful, I ended up not flying to see it and this influenced my decision.
I decided to attend Scripps. I went to school the following fall, made some good friends, and enjoyed the academics. However, I still had some lingering doubts about my decision and decided to attend summer school at Colorado College. That was a transformative summer—I made friends that are still my best friends to this day, I loved taking the Geology of the Rockies course that I took, and I really enjoyed learning on the block plan. I decided to transfer. I transferred halfway through my sophomore year, and I never regretted that decision.
Though I thought that the original college I chose was a very important decision, it turned out that the seemingly small decision to attend the summer session at Colorado College ended up being much more important. The choose your own adventure moment of choosing my college actually didn’t end up mattering in the long run.
In hindsight, all of the other “big” decisions I have made didn’t seem so momentous at the moment.
To become a math major, turn to page 88. To become a Japanese major, turn to page 17.
When I first went to college, I had no idea what I wanted to study, or what I wanted to do for a career. My uncle, who was my former math teacher, suggested that I take a math course every semester “until I stopped liking it.” For the most part, I enjoyed my math classes, so I kept taking them. I did finally come across a few math classes that I didn’t like (Abstract Algebra with its rings and groups), but I had already taken a lot of math classes. I considered majoring in Japanese because it seemed more practical in Hawaii, but, I had already taken enough math courses to be far along in the course of study. When it was time to decide my major, I easily chose math, because I liked the challenge and I was already well on my way.
To return to Hawaii and find a job, turn to page 45. To accept the job at The Thacher School, turn to page 77.
After my first year of teaching when I was looking for jobs, I was certain that I was going to find my way back to Hawaii to teach—after all, I had always thought I would eventually live in Hawaii. When I was interviewing for jobs, there was a math position open at my high school, but I decided to wait, and get a bit more experience before returning home. This didn’t seem like a big decision at the time, I mean, of course, I was going to move back to Hawaii. But then, I got a job at this place called The Thacher School, and I very quickly realized that it was a very special school and community. After a few years, though part of me yearned to return to Hawaii, I realized that it would be very hard for me to leave Thacher. And here I am almost 20 years later.
In my life, the choices that I’ve made that really changed the course of my life did not seem like big decisions at the time. Additionally, the decisions that I thought were so big (that they required thought and careful consideration) ended up not being so big. Sometimes, when you are agonizing over a choice, it turns out not really mattering. In contrast, the choices that I easily made (that seemed really small at the moment) have had a lasting impact on my life. In the end, my life hasn’t followed the story of a Choose Your Own Adventure story. I’m happy about that, because making life-changing decisions is stressful, and so far I’ve avoided the certainty of my death lurking around every choice.
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