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12 December 2018 | Story Mothepane Lebopo

The door closed. My eyes opened.

My dreams were halted as I sat up. She was already outside my window, the midnight moonlight lit her skin and erasing my fingertips on her arms. I opened the window… cold truth blew in. It stung my heart. She was going.

“Seriously? After four months this is how you are going to leave?”

Silence.

She was trying to control her breathing, to keep it as flat as possible. She had a unique, annoying gift of being able to compose herself in such situations, especially when she knew it was needed.

She stared at me.

My heart was pounding against my chest. In anger. In desperation. It had settled on her, but clearly she wouldn’t let me get close to hers.

I felt the first tear roll down my cheek. I quickly wiped away the second one. She just stared…

She could have been looking at me, thinking of other things. With her you never knew. She turned.

“Wait, please wait. Did you ever love me?”

She stuck her tongue out and left.

And I knew that was it: we were over. Thinking back, I might have known for a while that it was coming. But still… being prepared for something doesn’t guarantee your heart won’t break when it actually happens.

I left the window open, slightly. My head was spinning and my heart was tearing.

I laid on what was supposed to be our bed and dug my head in a pillow in an attempt to block out reality. It was useless; warm liquid from my broken heart poured out through my eyes. All I could smell was her.

But what was I expecting? It could never work. We were two puzzle pieces from different sets. Two pieces that were never supposed to fit… We tried to force it, and it ended in pain.

She was such an odd person. She had this ‘forbidden love’ thing about her. Being hers was strange, I knew she wasn't mine but I still tumbled head over heels. Being with her was like cheating on a diet. Or texting when you’re supposed to study.

She had beautiful, wild eyes that had perhaps seen too much. She got high on other people’s vulnerability. When her arms locked around me, she wasn’t just holding me, she was searching for pain. Insecurity. She would pin me down and kiss my nose. When she felt my guard coming up, she would tickle me and my power would leave me and enter her. She always won.

Often we’d try to watch the stars. I could never concentrate, her beauty was fierce and demanded undivided attention. She couldn’t focus either. She looked at the stars, not for their beauty, but for adventure. She looked at them as a guide.

I felt her hot blood in her embrace, she had to move to keep cool. There was rarely a still moment. Always dancing. Always moving.

I guess that’s what attracted me to her. I made her my adventure. I wanted to see what she had seen. I told her I was happy where I was but in reality I wanted to go everywhere she went. Wherever the stars would take her.

My lips only met hers when she was drunk. Perhaps she didn’t want to remember showing a little bit of emotion, being a bit vulnerable in front of me. But even then she rarely shared her thoughts with me.

So her secrets are still with her, while she knows mine.

That wild girl, may I never hold her again. She said she didn’t like it. She wanted to feel liberated. And my arms didn’t offer her that.

The girl with a storm in her heart had started a fire in mine and left.

I look out the window, where she had been standing. I almost smiled. What was I thinking?  Thinking I could fix her? Whether I love her or hate her, it makes no difference because she’s not here. She’s not coming back.

I will never know what exactly she wanted with me. But I’ll grow wiser from this.

You can’t teach someone who’s power hungry to surrender. You can’t mould someone who despises being held. You can’t put out a wild fire. Don’t try to pick wild flowers, because their thorns will pierce your skin and then they will wither because of your blood. But their scent will linger forever.

Now I know. You can’t tame someone who is wild. You shouldn’t offer your heart to someone who has sold her soul to adventure.

Don’t try to love someone who can’t be still.

 

News Archive

Postgraduate School opens at UFS
2011-05-19

 
Prof. Maresi Nerad, from Washington university in Seattle, USA
Photo: Stephen Collett

We are celebrating the launch of our new Postgraduate School (PGS) on our Main Campus in Bloemfontein from 16 - 20 May 2011.

In line with national priorities for research-based postgraduate education and the focus of the UFS Academic Turnaround Strategy, the aims of the Postgraduate School are to:

  • improve the quality of postgraduate student research;
  • produce graduates who are global citizens, research literate and able to reflect ethically on the purpose, process and product of research;
  • improve throughput rates of postgraduate students; and
  • make the experience of being a postgraduate at the UFS one which is stimulating, enjoyable and which contributes to the development of the person beyond the limits of her or his discipline(s).

“We hope that the school will be a pleasant place to pursue research scholarship, discuss ideas and relax, and we look forward to welcoming postgraduates and other scholars to the school,” Prof. Neil Roos, Director of the UFS Postgraduate School said.

This significant event in the academic transformation of the university goes hand in hand with the inaugural lecture of Prof. Maresi Nerad. Prof. Nerad’s impressive CV reads amongst others that she has a M.A. (Political Science) at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany and a Ph.D. (Higher Education) at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also the founding director of the national Center for Innovation and Research Graduate Education (CIRGE).

As Professor Extraordinary in the UFS’s Postgraduate School, she is bringing more to the table than a world of wisdom and her passion for the postgraduate education. “I can contribute lessons learned from four distinct professional experiences, including 17 years of administrative and scholarly leadership in undertaking the conceptual and practical transformational work of organisational change at two US postgraduate schools, where I worked amongst others to improve the quality of mentoring, shorten the time to doctoral degree, and improve doctoral completion rates.”

She also brings to the UFS her experience as founding and current director of the first research center for studies on graduate education in the world. “It is our mission to discover how best to prepare Ph.D. students to be effective leaders in research and society,” she said.

Prof. Nerad says that she is committed to support and consult with the UFS Postgraduate School. She would particularly encourage the use of research to understand postgraduate education in all its dimensions at the UFS better and to use the evidence-based findings as a base for policy-making and resource allocation.

In reflecting on her vision for the UFS Postgraduate School, Prof. Nerad says that five years from now she hopes to see the UFS having strengthened its position as a major driving force in the national South African postgraduate-education community for internationalising postgraduate education. She is also confident that the UFS will supply increased numbers of skilled postgraduates who are “intellectual entrepreneurs and risk takers with a social consciousness, who have sustainability of the systems of the planet as a core value”.

“Five years from now the PSG will have taken the lead in preparing graduate students who are world citizens,” Prof. Nerad concluded.

 

Presentation on PhD students reveals more than meets the eye

British professor presents a discussion at UFS

Journey from student to scholar

Society will take care of interests

Female academics talk about joys and lessons

Research plus the internet equals the cyber scholar
 


 

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