Hello,
Welcome to my first post on my website.
These post are meant to be informal documents about my thoughts on particular subjects or the development of what I am currently working on.
They won't follow any type of structure and will be organized in whatever way I feel like that day.
It will most likely change to be more structured in the future as the website develops. This first post will be about this website, what I have done, and what I plan to do with it.

First, let's talk about why I decided to create a website in the first place.
There were a couple of reasons why:

 1. I've always wanted to create my own website ever since I had taken my first web development course.
  However, I just never got around to doing it.
  I think the reason being just a culmination of a bunch of small excuses like "not having time" or "not knowing enough" ultimately kept me from even starting.
  Now that I'm older and, I guess, wiser, I try to no longer let small excuses like that hold me back.

 2. As graduation was approaching I started looking for the best practices on putting myself out as a candidate for a potential position as a software engineer.
  Along the way, I found that a website could show my skills in front-end development and I could also posts projects I am working on or have completed to show my skills.

 3. I wanted to be able to show my parents what I had learned in school with something that they could actually see and use.
  Without them, I would not have been able to finish my degree, so being able to show them what I can do and show them the potential success I can accomplish becuase of their support through a website seems like an easy but nice way of doing so.

 4. It'll help me practice my front-end development skills

 5. This is a great way for me to learn how to use AWS and React.
  Creating my own website will actually help me learn how to use tools that are currently being used in the industry.

All this leads into my next topic.
What is done on the website so far and what I would like to do moving forward.

Currently, the entire website is made up of HTML pages using CSS stylesheets and Bootstrap.
There is also a little bit of PHP for the contact page.
The entire thing will be hosted on AWS.
There are a few visual bugs that I can see, but other might not notice unless I point them out.
Overall, I'm content with the current look and flow of the site but I know there can be improvements made.
For example, the colorscheme could be better.
The visual bugs need to be fixed.
The graphic design elements like the logo could be better.
The next step for the website however, is to learn about dynamic webpages and how to apply them on AWS.
I want this website to also look good on mobile devices and currently it does not.
Dynamic webpages can help with that.
Then, I want to connect the website to a database which means I will have to learn how to use a database on AWS.
I want to use the database to create access rights through a login page so that some data can only be accessed by a select few people.
Then I want to apply some Javascript and more PHP onto the pages so that they can change to fit whatever is on the database without needed me to update anything manually.
For example, currently I have to manually update the home page to reflect any new journal entries.
With Javascript and PHP, I can set it up so that it does this automatically.
Finally, I want to convert the entire website to the React JS framework.
It's a very popular framework that is considered an industry standard.

If I can accomplish all this, It'll demonstrate my knowledge and skill as a full-stack web developer.