http://brevitymag.com/nonfiction/the-hard-part-of-community-college/
This memoir was written by a community college professor. It is about a troubled student in her class. It seems the student had a difficult childhood which led to a much more difficult life in his young adult years. He had dropped her class his first semester, but returned again the next semester. She learned a lot about him from his writing and began to understand him through it. The student tried to commit suicide multiple times, but couldn’t commit because he says he “couldn’t bear never seeing my mom again.” He worried that his hand would be covered in someone else’s blood if it were not his own. In a matter of time it was, he murdered two girls from school and turned himself in for it. The professor didn’t give up on him and he knew that as he wrote her a letter from prison, and in return she asks for a self portrait.
This reading was really emotional to me and that’s why I chose it. It was inspiring to me how people can see the good in someone who most people see such horrible things in. It was a sad memoir of course, but reminds you that it takes someone really special to see through it and understand the reasoning behind one’s actions. I don’t think it necessarily gave me any ideas for my own personal memoir since I can’t relate to it much, but it was a good read and I did enjoy the writing technique that was used here.