There was a Scottish couple on the train in to work today. That might not sound remarkable in itself - I didn't even talk to them, just stood and listened to the familiar accents, but it was strange how comforting it was to hear voices like that again, even if the woman did sound like Lorraine Kelly. When you're somewhere you feel foreign even after close to two years, things that would normally be unremarkable stick out greatly.

But even though I continually go on about America and how nobody told me it would be this different or strange or full of Americans, I was thinking last night about just how much I had to appreciate - I've got a good job doing something I enjoy, with good people (and the 10:30am start helps too), and overall we live very well for a couple straight out of university if we put aside the $35,000 debt as a technicality. The SAAS will soon no doubt be asking me for more money because I gave them £1000 last year and the coverage of payments for that must be running out by now, but that will probably be taken care of because we're moving out of the office in May and I might find myself with a pay rise because of the reduced cost of rent (reduced by $6,000 a month, actually).

Last week had a landmark day - it was the first day of the year where it was warm enough not to bother taking a jacket to work. I have two separate jackets - the giant Antarctic explorer one that everyone knew me for in university, and a leather one that I've had since third year of school. And the weather has been hovering around the leather jacket stage for a while, but it seems that it's beginning to be bright and sunny again - which is just as well seeing as my leather jacket is beginning to fall to pieces. It's rather worrying that I've never had it relined since I got it second-hand ten years ago, but also rather worrying that I don't seem to have grown at all since ten years ago either.

The bright weather does have one disadvantage, and that's that Clipboard Force 1001 will soon come out to convince everyone to give them all their money again, but you can't have everything.