I was seventeen, about to turn eighteen, when I landed in California to start college. I had a suitcase, a dorm assignment, and a class schedule with a required course on it called Literature 10. The first book assigned was The Odyssey. I had loved Greek mythology since I was a child, so on paper this was a gift. What I had not expected was to read it in that particular week, in a country I had been in for four days, at an age where I still had to do the arithmetic to work ou