This betrays a bit of a self-confidence issue on the part of the author, as does http://blog.carolynworks.com/?p=537 (more revealingly). It also plays like a specific issue trying to be painted into a gender issue, which it really isn't.

> “Who knows what lexical analysis is? No one? What, don’t you guys do this constantly in your spare time? All right, I’ll show you …”

If I may, I believe that the professor was connecting lexical analysis with what humans do on a second-by-second basis -- that is, parsing and interpreting speech from other human beings. Your brain is lexing all of the time, and I believe that's what the professor might have meant -- that was the first thing I thought, anyway. I'd drop a class like a bad habit if the professor quipped about me knowing something before he taught me (I'm not paying for self-study, pal).