Goodbye Blackberry, Hello Non-CDL

Today is the day I gave up my Blackberry. I don't leave the states for another week, but sadly had to say goodbye to my precious crackberry today. But thankfully my blackberry will be left in good hands with my best friend using it and "saving my number" for me. I'm hoping that my iPod Touch will be my new "crackberry" while I'm in Korea, because as fas as I have been able to research, people on E-2 Visa's can't get smart phones in Korea. I guess we'll see.

Also my first non-CDL drivers license in 3 yrs arrived in the mail today. It was super sad to give up my CDL -best college job ever driving city transit buses - but this way I won't come back from Korea with an expired drivers license. You see, in Virginia, a CDL must be renewed in person at the Department of Motor Vehicles, while a regular drivers license can be renewed online. If I were to keep my commercial drivers license, and thus let my license expire while I'm in Korea, I would come back to the states and have to retake ALL of the drivers test, the written and even parallel parking...and yeah, I would rather avoid that.

Also step 1 in my plan to send money home from korea is complete. I have no idea if this will actually work, but I did read about it on one blog somewhere on the interwebs. But anyways, I added my best friend to my bank of america account here at home and got him a debit card - which arrived in the mail today - step 1. Once I'm in Korea, I plan on opening a bank account at a major bank that offers an international debit card. Once I have that international debit card (which will be connected to my bank account where my Korean Won paychecks are deposited), I will mail the international debit card to my best friend back home. And then the money transfer via ATM will commence. You see, he will withdraw money using the (say for example) Woori Bank debit card at a Bank of America ATM. And then because Bank of America ATMs are soo cool and also accept Cash Deposits, he'll use the debit card that was issued to him connected to my BofA account and deposit the cash right into my US bank account. So I'm hoping that instead of having to pay in excess of $20 dollars on each side of a wire transfer ($20 to send the money and $20 to receive the money), I will instead pay 1% plus a $3 ATM fee. So if I sent $1000 home, I would pay $10 plus $3, or $13 instead of $40+! ---We will see if this plan works once I arrive in Korea.

Alright, time for bed, I can only breathe out of one side of my nose -- stupid sinus infection.
-Carly