About Tarsiers¶
This summer break, I’m going all in on intentional practice and learning about different areas. I’ve always wanted my vacation periods to be full of learning and focus, but for some reason or other I never really had the chance to execute. So I’m making up for lots of past summers gone by and working the hardest I’ve ever worked in my time in university.
I’m coming back to learn about React, Typescript and Next.js, which I had previously used to build the previous version of my personal website amongst other things. Now that I’m using a documentation page for my personal site, though…
It was time for me to build a site that I could share my love of tarsiers and some interesting facts about tarsiers.
What is a tarsier?¶
A tarsier is a small primate (not a monkey!) that lives in Southeast Asia. I’ve been obsessed with it for a while now, I remember talking to my chess coach (not the same one who taught me about the Godiva variation) about tarsiers from Bohol when I was 7.
The first thing you’d notice for a tarsier is how big its eyes are. Because it’s got such big eyes, its eyes are fixed in its sockets, so it makes up for it by being able to rotate its head 180 degrees.
They are nocturnal creatures - the big eyes help them capture more light in dimly lit environments. They’re also fully carnivorous, eating small insects and small animals. Unfortunately, they get very stressed when seeing humans, so I’m satisfied with looking at pictures of them over the internet.
Ever since chatGPT has been able to generate images, I’ve been generating images - and they have been motivating me to learn how to draw on my laptop. Unfortunately I have uninstalled Krita, but I’d be looking at getting back into it (see below).
Tarsier site¶
I’ve been sending pictures of tarsiers to friends for encouragement and motivation, especially close to exam time. Whether my friends are encouraged by the tarsiers, I’m not sure, but I will still keep sending them pictures.
I decided to build a site that would share some interesting facts about tarsiers. It’s a simple next.js site with Typescript, React with tailwind CSS. I used Framer Motion for some simple animations - especially because the large eyes and bony fingers of tarsiers look like the nerd emoji and the “uHM aCKShualLy” meme.
You can find the site here. It’s really simple as I took about an hour to build it, but I will be building it out over the course of the next few weeks.
Further developments¶
Of course, the CSS has left a lot to be desired, but I did this in 1h. I’ll be working on it more to improve and refine the CSS.
The following are some of the things I want to do with the site, beyond improving the CSS:
Replace the ChatGPT-generated image with my own drawing of a tarsier. It’s important to me that the images are eventually my own, although I took the shortcut this time to get it done quickly.
Add animations to the tarsier, so that the tarsier’s eyes blink.
Add the option to receive uninspirational quotes from tarsiers. I think my friends know I’m really good at saying sentences with absolutely no meaning, so this would be a very me addition.