a friend who bleeds is better

I got back from Dublin last night, and managed to keep myself awake until eleven p.m.--difficult, since I had slept four hours the previous night, and only dozed for a couple of hours on the eleven-hour flight from London to SF. I slept for ~11 hours last night, which was fantastic. Then, I played DDR, showered, spent an inordinate amount of time blowdrying my hair and doing my makeup given that I had no plans to see anyone, and went to the mall. I spent a lot of money at Ann Taylor (remind me that just because things are on sale at Ann Taylor does not mean that they are cheap!), bought a new bag/carry-on for my upcoming trip to Ukraine (not that I needed it, but I'm kind of sick of my backpack and so went for a tote-style model), and then came home. I spent an hour and a half on the phone w/my parents, made myself some spaghetti and chicken for dinner, and hung up my new purchases. Now, it's only 9:30pm, but I'm exhausted, so I think I'll go to bed soon.

Dublin was fun--I'd forgotten how much I liked the city, and now I'm vaguely regretting all over again that I had to come home after only three months last year. Then again, it's nice to have a life, boring though it is--although my life was nicer back when more of my friends lived around here and I spent less time working. I was thinking about my life on the plane yesterday, and I think that at this stage in my career development, when I'm still undecided about business school, writing, becoming a hermit, or switching fields and going into government or academia, what I really want to learn is how to be an effective leader. I'm not sure that my current position is going to teach me that--I'm managing people, but I have so many of them that I don't feel like I get to do a lot of active mentorship, and I'm not in a position where I have to direct them towards a common concrete end goal. I think if I had one or the other, I would be happier--working toward a common end goal (with an actual end) would give more milestones and a sense of checking off lists, while having fewer people and doing more mentorship would make me feel like I actually had some positive influence on their careers. Instead, I sometimes feel like I'm there just to make sure that they all show up and don't inadvertently or maliciously do something disastrous.

Regardless, I think that learning how to lead people is a valuable skill that can serve me well in whatever field I move into--particularly if I get to become a dictator someday, but even if I just stay in more traditional lines of work. At some point I'm going to have to decide what the next step is, since I want to feel like I'm choosing my life rather than stumbling into it, but we shall see. Now, it's time for bed!