My Grey and Greek fixations

The first step towards recovery is admitting you have a problem.

I have a problem. I’m seriously addicted to Grey’s Anatomy. And I’ve also been carrying on a love affair with a guy called Odysseus.

As soon as I got the GA Season 2 discs from Fara, I knew I was in trouble. I had fallen madly in love with the show after Season 1, and starting Season 2 was like getting reacquainted with an old flame… and gradually realizing that the everything you loved about him has only gotten better, serving to intensify your feelings for him. I have only gotten as far as the 4th episode (I’m pacing myself, limiting my dosage to only 2 episodes a day), but already I have cried twice, laughed out loud several times, and swooned countless, countless times (ok, Fara, I now concede that Alex Karev has his appeal ;p). Never mind that some of the medical cases are suspiciously similar to those from House (I beg forgiveness for my treachery, Your Snarkiness)— who can concentrate on what’s wrong with the patients when the doctors themselves are so deliciously dysfunctional and delightfully McDreamy (sorry, couldn’t resist :p)?

And then there’s my man Odysseus. I first got to know him intimately in my 2 years of teaching The Odyssey to my 4th year students. He’s always been one of my favorite characters from Greek mythology, but in those 2 years, I got really attached to him. My type of guy, after all: a smart, arrogant, brash smooth-talker who was also a judicious, headstrong, bossy leader. A pain in the ass, but an admirable, loveable pain in the ass. Looking back on my short teaching career, I can declare The Odyssey as the lesson I enjoyed teaching the most. It showed, too, in my devoting painstaking hours to creating PowerPoint presentations so that my students could also appreciate Odysseus’ greatness; coming up with fun, albeit sometimes corny (oh all right, frequently corny), games to liven up class discussions; and— to my students’ misfortune— designing meticulously detailed exams that attempted to cover every aspect of Odysseus’ story.

When I found out Nikos Kazantzakis— the brilliant author of The Last Temptation of Christ— had written an epic poem called The Modern Odyssey, a sort of sequel to Homer's masterpiece, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, the book had gone out of print years ago, so I asked my cousin based in the UK to buy it on Amazon for me. I am currently reading said book, and lined up right after it is James Joyce’s immortal classic Ulysses, another story inspired by The Odyssey. I also recently discovered that one of my favorite Tennyson poems— lines I know by heart— is actually an excerpt from a longer piece of poetry, Ulysses (it’s fate, I tell you). I feel like a stalker shadowing the object of my affection, but I find “the man of many wiles” endlessly fascinating. This has got to be the weirdest crush I’ve ever had.

Told you I have a problem.