On Friday morning, students in Professor Karin Blooth’s 9:30 a.m. Gender and Spirituality class were crestfallen when the single male student, Thomas Barnes, launched into a speech that has yet to be concluded. Barnes is currently in Dey Hall continuing his now 8-hour monologue with no signs of fatigue, discontent or awareness that he has been alone in the classroom for several hours.

Professor Blooth began the class hoping to speak about Dorothy Smith’s theory of the bifurcated consciousness, but was quickly derailed by Barnes’ impromptu lecture. 

“All I asked was, ‘How did you feel about the reading?’” recounted Blooth, “And Thomas hopped up and shared that he couldn’t do the reading because his first girlfriend was named Dorothy and one time they took acid together and she had a bad trip but he didn’t and it caused their relationship to go south which was really when he got into feminism because ‘maybe he could make a difference for women’ but he still couldn’t do the reading because he might have a flashback and that would totally trip him out,” Blooth shuddered and fell silent. “Things got a little hazy after that.”

Panic stricken classmates fled from the building at 11 a.m. while witnesses reported Barnes could be heard “losing track of his original point.”

A field reporter from The Onyen was dispatched at noon to get a direct quote from Barnes and has not been seen since. A second field reporter has been dispatched to bring earplugs, granola bars and water for the first.

This story will be updated as events unfold.