September 14, 2025 -
Time keeps marching on, doesn't it? In my last website update, I was 33, and we were still in the peak of COVID times, although I didn't reference that in the update. Now I'm 38, and just barely for a few more months. I'm lucky that I was able to figure out how to login to make edits to the website. These days I'm a mental health therapist for a community mental health agency, more than with 5 years of professional social work under my belt.
I'm not even sure who would ever read this page at this point. Probably just the spammers who like offering SEO solutions for my crappy website. For that matter, I'm not sure why anyone ever did read this website. It does crack me up to read the Andrew London book reviews and all the comments that remain preserved for posterity. I hope he is doing alright these days.
It is interesting and nostalgic to look back through my old content here. It takes me back to a time when I had just gotten done being a teenager and had all my adult life ahead of me. All of life was sheer potential and possibility. I still assumed I was going to be a professional writer of some kind. Now I'm doing well if I engage in writing as a hobby. But I've been writing some poems again lately. Maybe I'll get a wild notion to share them here one day. That would be pretty wild, adding some actual new creative writing content for the first time in well over a decade. Or maybe I'll self-publish.
I have to admit that some, maybe even much of the content collected here is a little cringeworthy. I consider taking down the content in case anything here would embarrass me later. But I love that there are still students reading my college essays. There are dozens of journalism articles I republished here that are nowhere else on the internet at this point, at least not without using the Wayback Machine.
JTBrandt.com is now nearly 17 years old. I was barely old enough to legally drink when this got started, and frankly it shows in the writing. Now I'm knocking on the door of 40. Probably I'll be well into my 40s the next time I get the itch to read this website. For when that time comes: hello 40s self! Hello from your late 30s. Hope you are still being true to yourself.
17 years ... At the very least, we can say that this website has stood the test of time, just in terms of sheer persistence, if not relevance or quality. I'll be glad to shell out 10 bucks per year as long as Google will let me to keep this content up. This website has become sort of a museum of my younger self. And this is something of a love letter to the guy I was in college. You were a cool guy. Still are, in some ways the same and some ways different.
A small note for whatever lonely souls do stumble in here ... I did change the subfolder structure of this website today to reduce clutter, so the old URLs that have been the same forever will be broken. But the content is all still here. Hope you don't have too much trouble locating it, and hope Google re-indexes it without too much delay so that high school and college students can continue to find my essays. I love when I get emails from you guys.
August 8, 2020 -
Wow, a lot has changed in my life since I last updated this website. Hard to believe this website is now nearly 12 years old. On my last update, I was 26, single, and relatively new to living in New York City. I lived there for 7 years from 2011 to 2018, had a career in digital media, and met a ton of amazing friends and my spouse before moving back to the Midwest. I'm now 33, married with two dogs, and bought a house in St. Louis. After moving back, I went to school for social work and now have a new career as a hospice social worker.
I don't think I will be making many changes to this site any time soon (if ever at all), but I am glad to pay the $10 a year it costs to let this content just kind of sit here so that students across the world can continue to read my essays. Keep sending me your emails. It's been fun to read them.
One exception: To the SEO people who keep sending me emails offering to revamp the website ... Don't bother. I know it is not optimally designed, and don't really care.
This website has bits and pieces of all sorts, from essays I wrote for college classes, to film reviews, to journalistic pieces, to blog posts on various topics. Please enjoy! And be sure to contact me if you have any questions or comments.