There’s a crucial semantic distinction between “summer” (the period of time between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, as any good almanac will tell you) and “summer” (the period of time in between semesters that is traditionally spent regressing back to whatever point in your life at which you last recall being happy). Under the former definition, we’ve still got like three weeks left in the summer; but despite what some calendar-fascists will tell you, we all know, deep down, that summer is over. After all, if it were still summer, then you’d be waking and baking at 2 PM, or at the beach, gradually melting into the sand in the throes of a solar ray-induced torpor.**

That’s obviously not the case. It’s fall semester, and you’ve been unceremoniously jettisoned from your pre-natal activity level back into the strange, crude approximation of the real world that is NYU. And as an unwilling re-inductee into the sort-of-but-not-really-real-world, it’s quite possible that you’re going to be expected to know things about current events. Maybe you’re a journalism major, or maybe you just spent the previous school year using Barack Obama to get laid and you’re afraid that you’ll need a new shtick soon.

Either way, I’m here to help. Below are half of the major stories of the summer. The rest of the list will come tomorrow.

1.) Health Care Reform
I don’t want to say too much about this now, because it’s a really complicated subject and Charlie and I are going to be covering it in much more depth next week. But the latter half of the summer has been an arduous Congressional slugfest over health care. Look for more coverage of the various reform proposals, contentious policy points, and the major players in the debate.

2.) The Iranian Election Protests
After President Ahmadinejad won reelection under dubious (to say the least) circumstances, angry Iranians took the streets. After about a week of large-scale protests, the Khameini-Ahmadinejad government cracked down, hard, leading to a death toll that’s still a little fuzzy in the specifics. The protests seem to have largely subsided, but something tells me that Ahmadinejad isn’t going to be able to just press the reset button on this one. Stay tuned.

Side note: One of the interesting things about the protests is how Internet-fueled they’ve been. There’s the green Twitter profile pics of solidarity that became a bit of a trend in the US, but there was also the viral video of Neda Agha-Soltan being gunned down, which became an iconic scene in the resistance.

3.) Sotomayor Gets Confirmed
Not without a bit of a sideshow, of course, as conservative commentators and Republican congresspeople alike wrung their hands over whether or not Obama was trying to get a barely literate affirmative action benefactor and secret hater of white people appointed to the highest court in the land. But, kabuki show aside, Sotomayor’s confirmation was a foregone conclusion long before it came down to a vote. It remains to be seen what her lasting role on the court will be, but for now at least the bench is a little less monochrome.

Tomorrow: Dead people, new senators, car rebates and torture memos.

*With many thanks to the lovely and talented Lily Q, from whom I plagiarized this title.

**This doesn’t apply, obviously, to those of you who were taking summer classes, or full-time jobs and internships. For you brave souls, The Grind is a twelve-month concept, even pre-graduation.

Photo by Flickr user talkradionews used under a Creative Commons license.