There was this lecture in the basement that I was told to attend. Failure to do so would result in a fail mark and complete annihilation so I was eager to at least sign my name on the roll before I walked out into the sumptuous summer air full of scent and lawn grass. The lecture was on 'How to stop shaking your limbs uncontrollably.' First, an extremely dignified old man walked self-possesedly onto a stage which was only one foot in height. I felt that the diminutive stage was a lesson in itself, how one needed only to be slightly elevated above the rest to have a listenership. The man walked up to the lectern on which sat a pitcher of water and, in a gesture which seemed grotesque because of how harshly it called one's first impression of the gentleman into question, drank the entire two liters of water with no breaths to punctuate it. Some of it spilled onto his three-piece suit, leaving a dark, inexorable stain which shone in the harsh light of the lecture hall like a gold medal.

People cheered the man on as he drank the enormous pitcher dry, but when he finished, having not even swallowed the last mouthful of the pitcher, he demanded that they stop. His imperative shout was muffled by the water which sprayed not just the front row but the entire lecture hall. They looked at him as though to say 'we thought you were doing it to impress us and earn our respect'. To be fair, every lecturer does this in one way or another--stilted, half-hearted recitations of outdated jokes, pointless antidotes, shameful self-citations. It is a perfectly understandable thing to do, given that the more respect one has the fewer disruptions they are forced to deal with. But this, the water episode, was something of an entirely different order. One student, whose haughty, pronounced chin and alternative trappings had earned him the position of emissary, asked why the lecture was so thirsty. The lecturer seemed positively enraged.'From giving it to your mother in every position she was familiar with, but I suspect, from the way her suggestions descended into domestic wares such as were in the immediate viscinity of the sexual acts, she was simply making most of them up.'

The student, whose expression had previously been smug and self-righteous, transformed fluidly into hatred. His hand began to shake as though he was writing an academic complaint in the plain air. But he did not give any retort, knowing it was expected of him, and simply walked out of the lecture hall.

'That', the lecturer said, blared even, pointing to the still swinging door the delegate had just exited the lecture through, 'is the reason I drank the fucking pitcher.' He looked briefly at his notes, as though the lecture had already started and he had already lost his cue. Then, as loudly and as forcefully, 'to get rid of pretentious pricks like that young man with the sexually deviant mother. He believed himself to be unique and insightful, not realizing that they are literally hundreds just like him walking around, testament to how much of a slut his mother must have been.' He paused and again examined his notes, checking to see if he had forgotten anything essential. Realising that he had, he added conclusively, in a comically moralistic tone 'but she was as stupid as she was sexually lascivious for not practicing birth control'.

The students stared at him astounded. Some smiled insolently, some, especially the females, were outraged by his chauvinism. Their expressions demanded some explanation, but he gave them none. All sat in silence, shivering wet from the water that had only minutes ago been literally spat at them. But none got up to leave. They were all so very absorbed in the acrimonious lecturer, a welcome change from the skin-filled suits who jabbered on all day about acronyms and Harvard in-text citation.

After several minutes, the lecture took up a piece of chalk and began to write on the board. What he wrote was the rules for his lecture. Rule number one was a negatively phrased proposition, 'Do not be pretentious', which he repeated and underlined violently. 'Do not be COMPLACENT!'. He continued, 'I shouldn't even have to say this because it is so fucking obvious, but one gets an education because one is anxious about the fact that one doesn't possess the necessary skills to make MONEY!'. When he said money he opened his wallet and pulled out about nine crisp hundred dollar bills. Then he pointed at them and repeated the word 'MONEY!'. 'This is what I want you to learn today. Not how to make it, but the fact that it exists. It's not what Mr. Marx would call 'surplus value' (when he said this his inflection betrayed utter disdain). It's not an artefact sitting limply in a museum because a piece of plexi because if it were the curator would have stolen it to finance his mortgage because 'curators' (again the inflection dripping with resentment) make DICK. They get off a 16 hour shift only to walk to an intersection with a cardboard sign that says 'will talk about the mesozoic era or some stupid shit like that for food'.

He stole a laboured breath. His pneumatic barrel chest inflated and deflated with such rapidity and force that it appeared fit to burst. This wasn't a man who talked because he had tenure and a reputation for making noises. This was a man who talked because he believed in something, even if that something wasn't in the prescribed course material. Even if it had nothing to do with academia.

From this point in the lecture I couldn't give you an accurate account of how the rest of the class felt about this man because I wasn't paying attention. I was fixated on this man, this luminary, who was like an explorer hacking his way through dense low-hanging jungles of political correctness.

"I will tell you right now that my lectures won't have a single second of theory. Oh, you will be assessed at the end of the semester. One exam, 100% weighted. And I will mark them diligently because i'm fucking ace at marking papers. But don't bother coming to your assigned tutes because I won't be there. Don't send me emails either because I won't read them. If you want assistance, ask professor Google."

"I will be spending every minute of these two hour lectures degrading you, calling you a piece of shit with no prospects nor hope of survival, bloody foetuses rolling around in recycling bins, enveloping yourselves in the travel section of last weekend's paper."