Breaking the Rules

Chapter 5

I walked into the administrative building at quarter to seven after seeing a note Regina had left on my desk. I was thrilled to be back, only regretting not being able to get back sooner than this more. Instead of knocking, I turned the knob entering the room closing the door behind me slowly. She was already with someone. Regina glanced up briefly from the conversation, her brown eyes doing a appreciatively quick sweep of me before turning back to our colleague.

I missed briefing last week, not that we needed the motivational speech either way, but that was just her way of getting us through the year. The other woman left nodding at me and I grabbed the chair she recently vacated.

"So Sebastian" Regina started looking over at me. "Welcome back"

"Not really the fanfare I was expecting" I state flatly glancing momentarily over her office hinting at the non-existent balloons and streamers. "But this works too"

She smiled faintly, her eyes steadied on mine. "I got your plan for the semester yesterday"

"Oh, I was wondering about that" I responded leaning back into the chair after taking up a small toy that was stationed at her desk.

"Yes and also your "I'm sorry I won't be able to make it" note. "I kinda have some sort of emergency "

I nodded. "It went something like that"

She shook her head, her glasses twirling around her fingers. "You know besides the fact that your note couldn't be any vaguer, I got the feeling that even you didn't think of it as an emergency Sebastian"

I shrugged, no s**t it was. But that was all I was willing to tell . "I did the best I could within the circumstances"

"And your excuse for the late plan? "

"None. You got it right? That's what matters"

Regina took a deep breath in shuffling her papers around on her desk. I checked my watch. Ten minutes past the hour. I hated being late for work and she knew it. She wasn't upset about the late entry of my year plan so something else was hiding under the covers. I cleared my throat pointing at my watch.

"Right, right" She says nodding her head understanding my need to get going. "I'm going to need you to take over the other class"

I got up heading to the door then paused. "What other class? You do know I only have one slot free and that's Thursdays at 3. I can't give that up, it's my consultation time"

"Take that up with your Department Chief. You delivered that plan yesterday so no ones willing to help out" She shot back as if I was the source of her grief.

"Your going to hell you know that?" I asked turning the lock of the door. She chuckled lightly watching me. "Which class Regina? "

"Anatomy"

Fuck!

I raised a brow, disguising the agitation that crawled up my neck. There was two of us for that course alone.

"Dr. Brown resigned. Sorry"

I shook my head and left her office. Great, that meant the entire year was behind by two classes already. How the hell was I going to work around this? I pushed the door of the lecture hall open and walked to the board ignoring the chatter of students. Slowly I wrote my name across the board, knowing that we were already late to begin with and there was no point in rushing the class at this point, worse since I had more house keeping business than usual.

"Settle down" I ordered, standing at the side of the podium lining the small mic to my person.

I scanned the room momentarily seeing the same effects as every year. A full theatre. But by weeks to come, it would be empty- well almost. A smile scrawled to my lips as I thought about it. This year would be completely different though. I didn't care if they didn't attend other lectures, but mine, as they will find out in the next few minutes would be mandatory. I waited a another agitating minutes as two other students poured in from the back and settled into a seat.

I attempted not to seem annoyed.

"Good morning, my apologies for the late start, I had a meeting to attend. My name is" I glanced back to the board where I had made the large scribble. "Prof. Sebastian Pierce, your anatomy and physiology lecturer for the remainder of the semester"

I stared at the set of freshmen before me, who were slightly indifferent to most of what I had only just uttered. That wasn't the most important part so it didn't matter.

"So getting to the meat of the matter. My rules. One, always be on time for lectures, if you think your going to be late, dream your going to be late, feel like your late. Your late so don't bother turning up. Second, tutorials are mandatory as well as labs, all count towards your final grades and I don't give free marks so you can all forget it from now"

They started to get rowdy and I held up my hand for them to shut the hell up. "Thirdly, no eating in my sessions, and lastly try to enjoy the course. Any questions?"

I left the floor open for them to speak. The theatre became a complete market place all at once. I rolled my eyes internally. Every year got worst than the last and every year, I resolved never to get sick enough to have them practice on me because in truth that's what they will do leaving this place. Practice. I nodded to a young lady at the front who held up her hand and motioned for the other delinquents to finally go silent.

"Um" she blushed her cheeks tinting rose pink. "Professor, how old are you?"

The cliche question.

The entire class fell silent waiting for me to talk. The young lady and her friends I noticed were eagerly anticipating my answer as was, I figured the rest of their female cohorts. I faced this question year after year.

"We'll leave that question for another time" I responded stepping back to the podium. " So, we'll start with something rather simple and work our way up. Trick question. What's the largest organ on the body? "

***

When I finally pulled away from my desk heading home, it was after seven. I had classes all day, besides breakfast I hadn't eaten a damn thing and I was starving but the thought of actually going home to cook was a complete turn off. Mind you cooking was never a best quality, but like many annoying things it was a requirement to actually survive life.

Hannah was out of town for the weekend, pending a case retrial so I was on my own. I turned on the freeway, after picking up something at the grab and go. Fast food was unhealthy, especially seeing I was lecturing future doctors on the effects of fats on health. This once though wouldn't kill me.

I grabbed the computer after finishing my late brunch and went through my objectives, noting what I had left to do. I likewise had to rework my schedule to fix in the annoyance of a new class. The only way around this dilemma was combining both classes, I didn't even have time for lunch this semester and if I did, I'd be late for a class everyday except thursday and that was unacceptable. If I expected my students to be on time, they expected me likewise to honor my rule.

Each class was two hours long for Anatomy and the Wednesday class was clashing with my other classes. I didn't know how the hell this was going to work but I had to get back to Regina about it and Dr. Morrison, the teaching schedule was ridiculous, I could only imagine what the students timetables looked like.

Even then only heaven knows when they'll even pull their assets from the office to do a damn thing about it. I glanced at the liquor case next to the kitchen, I definitely need a few more bottles.