I’ve seen a marked improvement in all that surrounds and underpins the class since the assistant joined. There have been no technological issues, and that makes such a difference to my enjoyment of the class; even the presentation slides have acquired a different meaning. I must admit that when the assistant was introduced to us, I was curious about his appearance. In my imagination he wore a beard - slightly ginger - and a red cap; and I know his name means salmon. I hope you’ll forgive me for googling him, though I found no trace of him on the internet, of course. Looking back, that was what piqued my suspicion that his name or even his entire person was made up. My belief was that you had created him so you could keep a distance from your fans, even if we are already separated by a screen. I bet lots of people do that - create an imaginary assistant, that is - I’d do that if I were famous, not that you’re famous in the Taylor Swift sense of the word, but you do have a certain following. Talking of Taylor Swift, Anti-Hero just came on which puts me in mind of the possibility that the assistant’s intelligence is artificial, though I don’t think they’ve made an AI as malleable as the assistant yet - not that I follow developments in AI closely - but that’s just a feeling I have, besides there was that minor mistake with the colour of the highlighted words in the slides last week, and that was a very human error, no AI would have done that, no offence. Not that the mistake bothered me, of course it didn’t, it didn’t even distract me from class, though I did notice it irritated you and I can imagine it might have distracted others. I’ll be honest what did distract me was the fact that you kept on drawing our attention to the mistake by referring to it as ‘whatever colour that is’ and at some point you even said ‘just so you know, it was yellow yesterday.’ That was what distracted me and that was when I wandered to the internet and fell down the rabbit hole of the assistant’s name; and though I didn’t find out what he looked like I did find out he was named after a fish and I thought, don’t you have a fish tank somewhere in your office? I do remember seeing it more than once in the background (before you decided to blur it). When I found out about the etymology of the assistant’s name I did think of sharing such a fun fact with the class, I even typed it up in the chat box, but I stopped myself from pressing send because I thought you might not like it especially after having been annoyed by something as unimportant as the colour of highlighted words in slides, not to mention after having worked hard on preparing a presentation in both English and Latin. I must say the slides did turn out beautiful even with the unusual colour of the highlighted words. But before I lose my train of thought, I haven’t sent this message earlier (like I said I would during the Q&A of the third class) because my son broke the knob of the front door and I’ve been looking for a replacement from the same brand and model but I can’t find it anywhere and that’s taken virtually all my spare time; on top of that I got a rash on half of my face, the left side, my left side, your right side if you’re facing me, and the rash doesn’t want to go. I’m sure you noticed I kept my camera off during the last class, that’s because I didn’t want to raise any concerns. I tried antihistamine tablets though I never take any medication that’s how bad it was and it still is, but I might as well not have taken any because those tablets made me really dizzy. The leaflet inside the box did say the medication could cause drowsiness and that one should not operate heavy machinery, but I only read it after the fact and by then I’d already been to work and driven the crane up and down the site all day. So I stopped taking the tablets and I phoned in sick though I don’t have a doctor’s note for it, hopefully I’ll still get paid, in any case, what I wanted to say is that the required reading has been rather challenging for me with the author going on and on about God’s container as if God was a liquid; and calling memory the stomach of the mind and my own mind drifting off, very unlike anything that has a stomach, but rather like a plastic bag in the wind flying away till it gets caught high up a tree. These are just a couple of examples, of course, I have many others, but I’m afraid I don’t have time to go into all of them right now. In fact I must leave you, I just looked at the clock and little people will soon be calling me from the bathroom or from under the table, there has been a spaghetti-in sock incident, surely nothing urgent this time, though often I quieten my thoughts trying to hear for a big toe stuck in a little mouth or the sound of water being splashed about in the bath as a little person accidentally drowns the other, but I’ll see you on Saturday regardless, though you’ll likely not see me with my camera off.