The Evolution of My Digital Space
Hey there! Welcome to version 3.0 of my digital playground! 👋 As a first-year PhD student still playing matchmaker with potential research directions, I've found myself with chunks of "free" time to do something utterly "useless" yet oddly satisfying—tinkering with my personal website. You know what's cool about web development? It's like playing with LEGO blocks for grown-ups: instant visual feedback, the thrill of discovering new pieces, and the joy of putting them together with your own creative spin. And speaking of creativity, let's just say my taste has... evolved quite a bit (three websites later! 😅).
The Bootstrap Days: My First Digital Baby
The website bug bit me during my master's program. Picture this: everyone around me had their shiny GitHub Pages site, and there I was, thinking, "Well, if everyone's doing it..." Thanks to my stint at AI Camp, I had some frontend knowledge tucked away, so I dove headfirst into the world of HTML/CSS and Bootstrap.
My first creation was based on the "Brandon Johnson" Resume template from BootstrapMade. Being the perfectionist that I am (hello, fellow pixel-pushers! 👋), I spent what felt like centuries adjusting margins and padding. Two hours tweaking a single component? Totally worth it! This obsession even led me to help my wife build her website (check it out here).
The Academic Template Era: Going WordPress
After a few months of manually editing HTML (and questioning my life choices), I realized this approach was about as sustainable as a chocolate teapot. As my content grew, so did my headaches from all the manual adjustments. Then I discovered al-folio, the darling of academic websites.
This WordPress-based template was like finding an oasis in the desert. It taught me elegant solutions for organizing components and opened my eyes to the wonderful world of website template workflows. Life was good... for about a year.
The Great Escape: Why Change Again?
Oh, al-folio. It was like that relationship that looks perfect on paper but starts showing cracks once you move in together. Sure, it looked polished, but as the developer kept updating their framework structure, bugs started popping up like whack-a-moles. I found myself filing more tickets than a frustrated IT helpdesk worker.
The final straw? The dark mode toggle. Picture this: you load the website in light mode, but it still insists on doing a dramatic costume change from dark mode first, creating this lovely "flashbang" effect. It was like having a website with a built-in strobe light – not exactly the vibe I was going for.
During my work on project Timewise (a chatbot doing cognitive behavioral therapy for adult students), I got cozy with React.js. One month of self-teaching later, inspiration struck when I stumbled upon Victor Dibia's website. His design led me to Jeff Jadulco's work, and before I knew it, I was neck-deep in code, spending 15 caffeine-fueled hours over three days to birth this beauty you're looking at now!
The Verdict?
I'm absolutely loving this new setup! The learning curve wasn't as scary as I thought (thank you, previous frontend experience!), TypeScript feels like a warm hug, and the customization possibilities are endless. I keep adding new tweaks like a kid in a candy store, and I'm having a blast!
Pro tip: If you're like me – someone who gets twitchy when components aren't perfectly aligned – consider building from scratch. The satisfaction of creating something exactly how you want it? chef's kiss Worth every debugging session! 😊
Each version taught me something valuable:
- Version 1.0: Patience is a virtue (especially when adjusting margins)
- Version 2.0: Templates are great, until they're not
- Version 3.0: Sometimes you just need to build your own sandbox!
To be continued as I inevitably find more things to tweak... because let's be honest, is a website ever really finished? 😉