Welcome to my blog. My name is Carlos Hernandez. I am an undergraduate student at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. My major is International Business with a focus in Asia. I have been studying Japanese since 9th grade. I also started studying Korean since last year after increasingly interacting with South Korean culture through Korean music, movies, food, television, and finally meeting exchange students from South Korea. I plan to study abroad at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea in the Fall of 2011.

I am a leader on my campus. I started the Japanese Club at USF in the summer of 2009 when I enrolled in Japanese classes and couldn’t find an organization that catered to my interest.  Starting my own student organization from scratch (drafting a constitution, finding members and officers, running meetings and events, coming up with creative ideas to keep the club interesting) taught me many things about leadership and people. There have been many trials and struggles, but I have learned and benefited far more than what I ever imagined from starting my own organization. A student organization is just like a company and taught me many business and life lessons. I am also involved in the Korean American Student Association, Hangul Language Club, Association of Filipino Students, International Business Board, Latin American Student Association, Vietnamese Student Association, and Video Game Club at USF…just to name a few.

I enjoy writing. I would make it my major, but the International Business major stood out to me when I applied to USF. I have written articles for a video game website owned by game journalist Jeremy Parish called GameSpite. My pride is my Snatcher article. I am a huge game nerd and have been playing video games all my life (though considerably less once I became busy in college).  Today I mostly play retro games, the only current generation system I own is the Nintendo DSi.

I am also an avid food writer. I pen the food blog Carlos Eats. I got the idea for the blog from a friend who owns a food blog called Tasty Chomps. After reading his blog and realizing I eat out more than three times a week and have written hundred of reviews on Yelp since 2006, I started a food blog. Surprisingly, there were very few food blogs in Tampa Bay so I quickly gained traction with readers and my blog has made it into the Top 10 blogs in Tampa. I also write for local newspaper Creative Loafing and Examiner.

My goal is to travel the world and work for or run an international business someday. The two places I want to visit the most are Japan and South Korea. I have a number of places I want to visit within and outside of the United States. I spent the first 9 years of my life in San Francisco, California; a hub of many cultures and people. I tried sushi for the first time when I was 5 years old at Isobune Sushi in Japantown and this was my first exposure to Asian culture. As I grew older and watched anime, read manga, and learned about Japan through video game magazines, such as Electronics Gaming Monthly, I became increasingly interested in Asia. Deciding to start studying Japanese as a foreign language in 9th grade was where I really had my start.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading my blog-I’m excited to be doing this,

Carlos Hernandez (photo taken in Chinatown-San Francisco last year)