As I was explaining this blog concept to a friend at lunch today, it hit me that I have not done any news summer-ies in a very long time.  Shame on me!  So, here you go news hungry college students!

The election is getting close.

The debate last week coupled with various other campaign events have caused the gap between Romney and Obama supporters to further shrink.  Romney has been visiting and campaigning in various swing states over the past couple of days and a CNN/ORC International poll released today revealed that the President only has a four-point lead on his opponent in the crucial battle state of Ohio.  Mark Shields, a famous and witty PBS reporter, spoke at a Medill lecture today that I attended, and he pointed out that Romney’s main challenge in the upcoming weeks is make undecided voters separate their personal like of the President from their opinion on his policies.  Will he succeed?  The upcoming debates will tell.

“Light at the end of the tunnel” for Greece.

Is there a silver lining in Greece’s future? Angela Merkel seems to think so.  The German Chancellor visited the country for the first time since the beginning of its financial meltdown in 2009 and addressed a crowd alongside Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.  While Merkel and Germany represent a positive step in Greece’s current economic problems, she faces some resistance and resent from Greek citizens as they credit the country’s tough cutbacks to her influence.  Greece’s government is about to vote on approximately €13.5 billion worth of new austerity measures, so Merkel’s six-hour visit comes at a very appropriate time.

The newest national holiday: Election Day.

Many grassroots initiatives are trying to get Election Day to become a national holiday.  The national movement broadly defined as #takebacktuesday is sweeping the nation, and with good reason!  Here is GOOD’s interesting write-up and call to action on the issue.  (Sidenote: start reading GOOD. It’s pretty good.)

Cabbies are the modern day Good Samaritans.  

It seems like I am not the only person in the world who has had a kind cab driver.  Las Vegas taxi driver Adam Woldemariam found $221,510 in cash in a laptop case left by a client.  Instead of taking the money, he did the honorable thing and turned it into his cab company’s security office.  The cash’s owner won all of his money earlier in the week at the Wynn Casino, and upon reclaiming his prize gave a $2,000 tip to Woldemariam.  Miracles do happen!

Well kids, that sums it up!  I AM BACK AND BLOGGING, SO KEEP STAYING TUNED IN AND SPREAD THE WORD!

Hello!  I promised you some daily summer-ies of what’s going on in the world so here it is: THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE IS ON RIGHT NOW! GO WATCH IT!

I was in a meeting till just now for Legally Blonde so I am just tuning  and will blog my reaction tomorrow!  (Speaking of Legally Blonde, I am creating an Elle Woods twitter.  The handle is TBD!)

So yes, go watch the debates!  In other news, Happy Mean Girls Celebration Day!  Go celebrate your October 3rd.  I dedicated a blog post to it last year on (365) Days of Summer. *Sigh* time flies!

Anyway, off to the debates! I will probably be live tweeting from @Summer_Delaney if you want to hear my thoughts!

For most people, CTA stands for Chicago Transit Authority; however, in the Chicago neighborhood Edgewater where my fall journalism class is taking place, it means Cover Thy Ass.

Oh no, I am not kidding.  This is a direct quote my new journalism professor Steve told my class yesterday after a Northwestern campus police officer visited the news bureau we are stationed out of and gave us a safety lecture.  (Side note: I realized I do not follow a bunch of personal safety tips, like how I shouldn’t listen to my iPod on trains and public places or that I shouldn’t have my keys attached to my wallet because if stolen potential robbers now know where I live and how to get in.  Awesome.)

Anyway, sorry for the tangent; as you can tell from above, I am back in school! It’s shocking, and almost laughable, to think that it’s October 2^nd and this is my first full week of class, but here I am finally getting into the swing of things!  You know what that means right?  Blogging regularly!

The other three classes I am taking this quarter are American Women’s History from the Civil War to the Present, Intro to Stat and Reading World Literature.  But, for this post I am going to focus on my blossoming journalism future.

Enterprise Reporting in Diverse Communities, or Journalism 301, is the class that most sophomores DREAD to take because a) it is not in Evanston and b) it is pretty hard as you have to leave your comfort zone of interviewing students/hitting up friends and actually approach people on the street and talk to them.  But, regardless of the horror stories I’ve heard, I arrived at the El Stop Monday pretty optimistic.  The first class ran pretty well, minus a couple hiccups including the El breaking and my class boarding a bus and trying to navigate its way to Edgewater as well as personally deciding after the safety talk that I need to reinvest in pepper spray, but overall I’m excited for the class which special interest topic is reporting on the LGBTQ community.  Plus, my fellow classmates are pretty awesome which is always a plus

So yes, I am back and will blog regularly so get STOKED!  On the non-class front, I am currently debating what I want to double major in as I have decided that if I choose Political Science I don’t have freedom to take all the classes I am passionate about.  I am thinking about creating a major based off one from Cornell called Information Sciences, so we’ll see how that works out.

Also in other news, I truly am my father’s daughter; I have decided I want to be a member of one of the marketing or business groups on campus as well as join an ASG (Associated Student Government) committee.  (Speaking of Papa John, here is a recent campaign video! I feel supa famous).

Anyway, that’s sums it up!  Get ready to be informed as I am resurrecting my personal news summer-ies tomorrow.  Control your excitement.

I am so sorry I have been dreadful about keeping up with blogging.  Summer (the season, which yes still exists for me until September 27th ) does not function on a routine and I simply loose track of time!  When I return to school and need a somewhat effective way to procrastinate homework,  this blog will return to a post level of normalcy.

Anyway, I am introducing a new “segment” (is segment the right word? I have broadcast journalism on my mind) called Some Useful Media or SUM.  (Do not to get confused with SUMS, Something You Must See. That is a whole different beast.)

Today I have decided to focus on the fascination of Instagram.  While this application is not necessarily a new phenomenon as I first heard about it in the fall, I have found it more and more addicting and useful as time has passed.  My obsession may have grown partially because this summer my camera was not my staple accessory as it has been in years passed, but I also think the reason is because Instagram is much more than a cool photo application to upload pictures from weekend escapades.

First thing is first: there is a distinct different between a Facebook mupload (mobile upload) and an Instagram photo.  A mupload is just a normal picture–catching a friend in an embarrassing moment, capturing a screen shot of an iPhone text conversation, taking a pic of that random Lilly Jeep you pass on the street–but if you Instagram a photo, you better have a purpose.  Maybe you snapped a shot of a street mural with an inspirational quote, or maybe you are displaying your newest dessert masterpiece, or maybe even you are showing off your cool jewelry, presented on your hand that is dangling outside a car window with a summer sunset in the background, but all these and more are not just your average Plain Jane images.  No, these are images that the photographer deems artistic or unique and wants to share.

Why does Instagram bring this photo creativity to the next level?  Well, mainly the filters.  Are you capturing a moment that would better fit a Valencia or Amaro setting?  Do you want your colors to be sharp in X-Pro II, or are you in more of a softer mood and need an Earlybird effect?  Do you want a homemade border feel like Kelvin, or do you want the shot to be straight and simple and use Rise?  All these are crucial decisions, and a quick choice has the potential to totally make or break an image.

Because Instagram continues to perfect photos, it is becoming more and more present in the media.  As I have been watching the conventions over the past week, I continue to notice that reporters like Anderson Cooper are using Instagram photos on Twitter to capture moments.  In this digital age where we expect immediate results in what is going on, phone images are becoming more and more useful:  in breaking news events like the Aurora Shootings, the first images to surface did not come from major news networks like ABC, MSNBC or CBS but rather were found on Twitter and Facebook uploaded by bystanders.  It is true that in five, ten years, our smartphones’ cameras will be as advanced as Nikons.  But for the time being, Instagram can be used to raise the bar on what we see.

To me, what makes Instagram so unique is that the application is truly a new type of social media.  Instagram had over 30 million users in April 2012 and this fact coupled with its’ growing audience has caused companies like Sharpie and Tiffany to begin using the site for branding and advertising.  For a few months, I used Instagram in the context to perfect my images to share with friends, but now I have come to use the application more and more as an exclusive individual platform.   I don’t even upload the majority of my photos to Twitter or Facebook anymore (but if you want to see them all, you can follow me @sdelaney55)!

At the end of the day though, what makes Instagram so popular is it serves as personal photo diaries of people’s lives.  By looking at different accounts, you can see what people are up to, who they are with, and more importantly other precious moments in time that are witnessed and can only be expressed through images.  Sure, with Instagram you are not going to upload hundreds of photos of what you did one weekend, but maybe this causes people to only share the moments and things that are truly special and that narrate the story of our lives.

HELLO EVERYONE, LONG TIME NO BLOG!  I am sorry I took an impromptu two week hiatus–I was busy climbing mountains, swimming in the ocean, leading at FOCUS camp and just enjoying summer in general!

I’ve made a few recent discoveries in my break, the first being that I want to spice up this blog a little more!  I’ve been doing a lot of summer-ys, but I also promised to do some editorials so I am going to set out to do that!

I also realized I want to continue to further bring my voice into my writing.  I feel like my posts so far have either been really serious and “newsy” or had the air of my high-school blogging self, speaking Spanglish occasionally and at times writing about inconsequential life occurances.  So, going forward I want to merge my two-spheres, speaking with more poise and confidence I had after interning at ABC News and being in college while also allowing my quirky personality and random and hopefully entertaining life events to shine through.

Finally,  I want to continue to write about new websites, technologies and aps in general that relate to the media and how we process and receive information in general.  This fasination of mine is no news to me, but I want to continue to explore this topic as I don’t really know what I want to do in media in the future.; this will hopefully be especially be beneficial to my fellow Medilldos! (muh-dil-do, n. a person who has either willingly or unwillingly committed their undergraduate experience to all-nighters and Lynda.com videos in an attempt to study journalism; they have no idea what to do with their lives).

This summer was one of the best of my life, and as weird as it sounds, I think the main reason that happened was because I learned more about how to use technology better in terms of my public and private life.   In many ways I was more online more than ever–tweeting multiple times a day, joining Pintrest, resurfacing in the blogosphere–but in other ways I was more private.  For example, most notably I decided that I did not use my camera this summer (part of it was because it broke at the end of freshman year, but minor, minor).  This was big for me as I have 50 albums on Facebook, but I realized that while I did not document every great moment I had, I got to step back and enjoy my life more (it didn’t hurt that my discovery of Instagram and artsy photos filled part of that void).   Anyways, the photo-experiment and many other such epiphanies taught me how to continue to use social-media in a healthier way going forward with this blog and other life ventures.

With all that being said, here starts another chapter in That Sums It Up!  I’m refocused and ready to go dive back into the news, but again this is only the 2.0 version so improvements are still being made.  And don’t worry, you’ll still get your sums of what is going on in the world plus more!  I’m going to start not using my old twitter as much and will be posting more news/interesting updates on my “profesh alter-ego” twitter, @Summer_Delaney.   Follow me!   I have no idea what kind of post I will do tomorrow, but get pumped because this blog will be better than ever!  Ttyl!

(Still working on this whole growing-up thing).

Happy Monday!  Sadly, my internship ended with ABC News yesteray after This Week, and I couldn’t have asked for a better summer.  While I am thankful I will not have to get up at 4 AM every Sunday morning, I will miss all of the people I worked with and the busy life in the Washington bureau.

Never fear though, “That Sums It Up” lives on!!!  Here are some snippits of what is going on  in the world:

Paul Ryan chosen as Mitt’s VP.

BIG NEWS THIS WEEKEND: Mitt Romney chose Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan to be his running mate!  Saturday morning, the GOP nominee revealed his VP choice of Ryan in Norfolk, VA on the USS Wisconsin; how appropriate!   Ryan serves as the chair of the House Budget Committee and is controversial figure due to his thoughts on fiscal reforms, most notably his “Ryan Plan.”   Some are claiming he was a extreme choice for team Romney, but in my opinion while he is a bolder choice than Rob Portman or Tim Pawlenty, he still is a white, Catholic mid-westerner and is not as daring as say Marco Rubio or Chris Christie.  Will the Ryan pick work in Mitt’s favor, or will it hurt as the election will be driven away from our nation’s economic problems and Democrats will focus on the Ryan Plan’s stance on medicare?  To be continued…

Texas A&M shooting kills three.

Another shooting tragedy occurred today as a man began shooting on the Texas A&M campus.  The gunman killed a Texas contable and two civilians and injured four other.  The suspect has now been arrested and his identity is yet to be revealed.

Marco…Polo?

This story is unbelievable.  Hugh Armstrong was your average 72-year-old grandfather who was on vacation with his family in New Hampshire when, suddenly, he lost his memory while hiking alone and tripping in the woods.  He woke up, not knowing who he was, and began a journey to try and discover who he was.  Armstrong pieced together he was from North Carolina, and made a 1,000 mile trek to his homestate; on the way, he stayed in abandoned barns, hitchhiked and recieved clues on the way like discovering his initials on his wedding band and remembering his granddaughters name after hearing it yelled in a restaurant.  Eventually, he found police and is now reunited with his family.  Awwwwww!

Meep I am off to dinner, so that’s all for now!

I am going to keep this blog post short (hello, it’s Friday!), but I thought I would share my exciting day in the White House press space!

My internship ends this Sunday at 11 am after This Week, so I prepared to go to work today and say goodbye to all the people that work at ABC only during the weekdays.  I was emailing with Jon Garcia, the White House producer, to try to coordinate when I would see him as he was one of my closest colleagues at ABC not only because his office was outside my computer station, but also because he always had great food (like Air Force One M&Ms!) and a comfy couch to chat on!  Alas, he told me that he was spending all day at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and I was quite bummed to say the least.  I told him I understood and joked that during my ABC internship, I have been to the press booths at the Supreme Court, the Senate and the House but never the White House…and he got me through security clearance in 15 minutes!

By the time I got the final a-okay, I had 10 minutes, so I booked it up Connecticut Avenue and made it just in time.  I stood in the back of the press room and scribbled notes while White House Press Secretary Jay Carney answered questions ranging from domestic issues like ethanol and the campaign ads to international topics like Iran, Afghanistan and Syria.

From then, I headed back into the ABC White House booth and spent the rest of the day there helping Garcia write the bureau DL note.  He told me my writing style was a lot like a PR person, which I found interesting as I am currently torn if I want to pursue journalism or PR. Hmmm.  Anyway, after we wrote the email, we talked for an hour about journalism and I asked him for advice.  Before we parted ways, he took my picture at the White House podium, and I gave him my first business card!  (Yes, I made business cards when I was feeling professional one day.  They are purple for NU!)

That was pretty much my day!  Instead of doing a usual summer-y, I thought I would give the exclusive inside scoop of what it is like to report at the White House!  Have a good weekend and blog ya Monday!

Fun day SUMS day!

Some of the biggest news of the past couple of weeks has been how ridiculous the campaign ads have been from both sides this election cycle.  In fact, the videos have become so blown up that Democrats and Republicans have called  the need for a ceasfire.  Here are some examples:

Obama That I Used to Know.  This LA based duo released a new music video about how Obama has not lived up to his promises from the 2008 election.  The pair of college graduates made a parody of the song “Somebody That I Used to Know” (you have to see the original music video to get it).

Understands.  This video has caused QUITE the controversy as it is implying that Mitt Romney was responsible for a women’s death.  The man featured in the video worked for a steel plant that Romney and Bain Capital shutdown, and by loosing his job he and his family lost their health care; this allegedly caused his wife not to to get treatment for her Stage 4 cancer.  The video was not released by the Obama campaign but by a Democrat super PAC; however, many Democrats are opposed of this kind of advertising, specifically former President Clinton White House aid Lanny Davis who stated this morning, “that [ad] make us all want to take a shower.”

Romney Girl.  In case you missed this anti-Romney video I posted yesterday, it’s very catchy.

And finally, even local elections get ugly.  This ad isn’t even for the presidential campaign, but it’s appalling.  Arizona’s Maricpoa County Sheriff race is getting bad as displayed here when candidate Paul Penzone implies that the incumbent Joe Arpaio is soft on physical and mental abuse investigations.

Why is this happening?  Well, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.  There has not been a president since the Great Depression that has won re-election with an unemployment rate above 7.2%, and currently it’s a full percentage point over at 8.2%. With this being said, Obama has charged ahead and tried to draw attention away from the failing economy by criticizing Romney for his tax records and history.    And, while Romney has been playing defense for some time now, it appears he is beginning to viciously fight back.

The real question remains: will Obama be successful at destroying Romney’s image, signifying that despite the his track record the president is better suited that the GOP nominee?  Or, will Romney be able to make a comeback and bring the election focus away from the little, personal issues and on to the big problems plaguing our nation?  Well, only time will tell.