What’s going on in the currency markets? It’s absolutely mental!

During my Year Abroad, £1 equalled 233yen.

Today (45 minutes ago), £1 equals 162yen.

I was just doing the sums – my salary here is is worth £7000 more than it would have been worth a year ago (if sent back home).

This is great news for me, as it now means that, whilst I only have an average salary, I can pay back my debts at a rate of £1000 a month, something which until now I never would have thought possible.

I’m now in the process of resuscitating my long-neglected GoLloyds account, whereby I can deposit cash in any appropriate ATM here in Japan and have it show up in my British bank a few days later (minus fees of course).

In other news, I was up at 7am today for the first of my thrice-weekly jogs. I’m find it interesting how this time round, with the goal of a mini-marathon to aim for, I’m far more motivated when it comes to getting out of bed and heading down the road to the park. It’s not a chore, it’s FUN!

But I know that there may be some mornings when it’s not quite so sunny, or I’m not feeling so enthusiastic about heading out into the cold, and for that reason I’m looking for as many ways as possible to keep me going. Timing my laps was a start, but I knew I needed something more than that…

…enter RunKeeper for the iPhone.

Basically, this app uses satellite navigation to track you as jog your course. From the GPS co-ordinates it can then of course work out your distance and speed. It also makes a note of elevation too.

The results are initially displayed on the iPhone as a bar chart, each bar (where height = speed) being one minute of movement.

That’s all very well and good, but it’s still a bit disconnected from reality. Where it really comes into its own is where you finish your run and tap on Save. Two things happen: it saves your run to your iPhone’s history for later reference, and it then sends that data to the RunKeeper website, which places your route and stats on Google Maps.

How sexy is that?!

(Unfortunately I neglected to restart it after a pause for shoelace-tying up so the data on this screenshot is incorrect (I went further and faster!))

These are the kinds of uses of hardware, software and networks that I find really exciting. They can have a real positive impact upon my lifestyle, playing on some of my weaknesses (love of tech) to overcome other weaknesses (lack of extended dedication?).

Now all I need is an app that will sync with my camera to location-tag all my photos, then I think my life will be complete!