I have a problem. I like things too much. If I curl up in bed with a good book, I disregard my biological need for sleep and stay up reading all night. If I stumble onto a TV show I find entertaining, I make a beeline to Netflix and watch episodes 1 through 100. I develop an all-consuming need to know everything — the author’s inspiration, the actors’ failed marriages and every other imaginable detail. In fact, I like things so much that I can’t just like them — I have to love them. In more colloquial terms, I get obsessed.

Over the past couple of years, my constant cycle of television addictions has become a way to measure my life, akin to the pencil markings of my changing childhood height. In sixth grade, I couldn’t get enough of the privileged yet troubled teenagers of The O.C.; in seventh grade, I moved on to the romance-filled operating rooms of Grey’s Anatomy; and in eighth grade, I was bewitched by the many adversities and supervillains faced by a young Clark Kent on Smallville.

Then high school hit, and a growing need to procrastinate led to an unprecedented wave of addictions. In my three-and-a-half years at Lowell, I’ve gotten hooked on everything — from cancelled shows like Freaks and Geeks, Pushing Daisies and Friends to current sitcoms like The Office, 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother to the BBC’s enduring science fiction classic, Doctor Who.

Once I get going on a show, I devote my spare time (and some of my not-so-spare time, for that matter) to humming along with the opening credits as I immerse myself in episode after episode. I fantasize about traveling through time and space in the Doctor’s TARDIS; solving murders with the piemaker and the girl named Chuck; and pulling pranks on Dwight at Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton, Pennsylvania branch.

Similarly, I experience a frenzied state of fanaticism during major sporting events. The Olympics are one of my greatest weaknesses. For two weeks every other year, all I can talk about are gold medals, and I’m only interested in people like Usain Bolt and Shawn Johnson — names I all but forget in my non-Olympic day-to-day life. The same applies to the World Cup. July 2010 transformed me into a desperate fan, waking up at 4 a.m. to catch kick-off and putting aside patriotism to don the Spanish red and yellow. Then, four times a year, my life goes on hold as I devote myself to Rafael Nadal’s efforts in the tennis Grand Slams — the Australian, French and U.S. Opens and, my favorite, Wimbledon. And don’t even get me started on the World Series. For the entirety of last October, I could only see two colors: orange and black.

And then, of course, there are books. The Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series have been fixtures in my life since my dad used to read them to me as bedtime stories, and whenever I feel the need to revisit simpler days, my mega-obsession will resurface. From Shakespeare to Salinger, I’ve had my fair share of literary phases, but most notable is my love of Jane Austen. It took me all of one day to read Pride and Prejudice for the first time: I braved ungodly hours of night to finish the book. As swiftly as possible, I tore through her five other novels: Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, Emma and Northanger Abbey. I’ve since reread the novels multiple times, watched nearly every film adaptation — even the awful Laurence Olivier 1940 Pride and Prejudice that totally butchered the ending — and become an fluent speaker of Regency-era English.

This year, the inevitable bout of senioritis has magnified my obsessive tendencies. With mountains of AP homework to do, dozens of colleges to apply to and my sanity to maintain, I have no time to spare, so naturally I spend the time that I don’t have developing new obsessions and fostering old ones. I’ve been able to keep it fairly under control so far, though I may lose a few hours of sleep here and there to cheer on New Directions on Glee and reread Harry Potter for the umpteenth time.

But despite my burgeoning caffeine addiction, I’ve come to accept my fate as an eternal fangirl. Thanks to the countless shows and books, I’m culturally well-informed — I understand nearly every pop-culture, historical or literary reference that comes my way. How else would I know that Andy Roddick holds the record for the fastest serve ever or recognize “so it goes” as Billy Pilgrim’s catchphrase in Slaughterhouse-Five?

And, truth be told, my obsessiveness is part of who I am. Because, even if I occasionally psychoanalyze myself with frightening labels such as “addictive personality” and “obsessive compulsive,” I realize that what I really am is passionate. When I like something — a story, a sport, even a subject in school — I love it with the thrill of genuine enthusiasm. The way I see it, our individual passions are blessings that differentiate all seven billion of us. So maybe I don’t have a problem after all. Maybe I just have a unique way of seeing the world: through the eyes of the Doctor and Jane Austen.

A version of this article first appeared in the Dec. 8, 2011 print edition of The Lowell.

Illustration by Vivian Tong