My wife and I stayed at a lovely Bed and Breakfast on the Coromandel Peninsula over the weekend. Here’s a snippet of conversation with the hosts over breakfast.
Host: What do you do for a living?
Me: I lecture physics at Waikato University
Host: Really? I used to lecture physics in the US – I’m a secondary school teacher now.
Wife: Wow – when he tells people what he does they usually just say "oh" and change the subject.
Well, finally I have proof that I am not the only physicist in New Zealand. There then followed a very interesting conversation about solid state physics and how to calculate structures of solids with a computer, but I shan’t relate that to you.