Memoir essay
I spent fourteen years in my motherland, Taiwan, exploring every nook and cranny. My trademark was skateboarding. With my skateboard, I could penetrate small and dark alleyways. Nothing could deter me, not even when I trespassed on other age mate’s territory. I, an experienced skateboarder, didn’t give a toss and it was my least worry.
I enjoyed the thrill of engaging other skateboarders in a cat-and-mouse chase when I trespassed on their territory. I knew that if they lay their hands on me they could beat and leave me for the dead: but could they? They couldn’t unless I let them do intentionally. They couldn’t surpass my skateboarding skills and they cursed their folly.
During youth competitions that were organized by the youth, albeit with the authority banning skateboarding, I triumphed: always emerging the best. To cap it all, the females who were more of admirers than spectators, cheered enthusiastically and it wouldn’t be a bolt out of the blue if there were all love struck with me.
The night cat-and-mouse chases went took a new level: the number of skateboarders who chased me increased twofold. They came up with new tactics to ensnare me but I hatched a salvo of new maneuvers. Whenever I found out they lay stones on the shortcut that I used to take, I changed course and used another way that passed right through their homes, right on the doorsteps of their houses, right under their noses. Anyway, didn’t the sages say that a shortcut is always a wrong cut?
However, I had a premonition that one day, in one way or the other; I would drink to the dregs of my habits. The much I knew about the day that was yet to come was that it would have all the hallmarks of the preceding days and nothing would give it away.
However, no matter the warning in my head and the scope of danger that I was putting me into, my night expeditions went on as usual, undeterred. I wish some someone had zapped me with a clue for what lay in store for me, for that day I dreaded, finally came (Thomas). It was a fateful day. I tried to reconnect skateboarding with the issue and at a loss, I found no evident relation but there was one thing that up to even know I do: I give scant credence to coincidence.
A word about my night expeditions reached my parents and I had to sneak out of the house to avoid their curious eyes. Even though skateboarders hardly put on protective gear, it’s of great significance to protect one’s body. I never failed to put on my protective gear: a helmet, knee pads, mouth guards, elbow pads, shin guards and ankle brace. However, that night, in my haste to a sneak out of the house, I forgot my skate pads.
As usual of every night, I ventured into my expedition, nothing loathe. Same too, I did on other nights before I engaged the other skateboarders into a chase, I surveyed the shortcut that I would take and my predictions were made true: the way was strewn with stones. Then, I went and stimulated the chase. As the skateboarders treaded hot on my heels, I took the longer way, passing through their homes. I gained speed and created a yawning gap between them and me. The labyrinthine maze of ways could confuse an eye but I was a veteran: I knew the ways like the palm of my hand.
As fate would have it, I skid off the way a I neared the end of the rivals’ territory and before it could ring in my mind that my rivals had poured grease on the way to ensnare me, I was down with a thud, at one time nursing my injuries, and then, as a headache became a migraine, I was slowly drifting into unconsciousness and from what seemed from a far distance, I could hear a heated commotion from the other skateboarders, their words inaudible but I thought I had them say something like,” he has died…”
Two days later, as I was told, I surfaced from my unconsciousness in a hospital but I was nipping in and out of consciousness. However, once when I had fully surfaced, I had heard the doctor talking to my mother, “The boy needs advance treatment in America and I would recommend a hospital in New York called…” Two days later, my parents and I boarded a flight to America where not only did I get treatment but also started my high school education abroad. After the four years in high school, I secured my self a vacancy in a college located in Connecticut where I studied marketing major for two years. However, I realized my love for art and so I enrolled in a college located in San Francisco where been studying interior design for the past two years and looking forward to graduate after two years.

Work cited
Thomas, Larson. The memoir and the memoirist: reading and writing personal narrative. Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2007.