About a month ago I got an announcement about a new post at a university in Auckland, New Zealand. They are looking for someone to lead their research in the building field. I let them know I was interested. A few days ago a fellow from the university called me to see whether I was serious. “Of course,” he said, “we know who you are and we are quite pleased that someone of your eminence has shown interest in this post.” This reminded me that someone at Reading had called me at MIT to see whether I was serious about my previous move. I told the fellow from New Zealand that I could well imagine moving again, but that my wife might see things quite differently. “She is an artist,” I explained, “and London is either the top art center in the world or one of the few top centers.” He was sympathetic. Then he told me they would soon be back in touch with me, and I told the fellow I would talk to my wife. Not surprisingly, she was not impressed when I broached the subject. Although she chose her words carefully, it was clear New Zealand was a non-starter, as the Californian expression goes. Puzzled a bit about my next step, this evening I opened a big map of the world, which my mother had bought a few years ago. “I love to see where things are,” she never tires of saying. No matter how I turned the map, and no matter how I imagined it redrawn, New Zealand indeed looked like a geographical non-starter. Still, that was precisely what kept drawing me to this sliver of land at the edge of the world.