On Time Management

[hazlogs]

It is currently 19:01 Pacific Time on Tue Mar 29 2016.

Umbra: Harbor Park

The Umbral ground beneath your feet here is lush with vegetation, an oasis of life amidst the concrete and webbing of the scab. Trees stand proud and tall here, their branches full of leaves. Shrubs line the outer edges of the park, tangled with encroaching webs. The fountain stands out boldly from even the surrounding area, the sleek lines sharper and more pronounced. Clean pure water roars and cascades from the figure in the fountain's center, falling into a cold clear pool that looks quite inviting. Spreading out from the fountain, the rest of the park is a green veldt that seems to radiate life and strength. The river banks the east shore of the park, bridged by a massive rusty bridge. On this shore, the glade seems to have spread out on to it, vines winding around the supports. Further across the river, the bridge melds into the scab again, flaked with rust and covered in webs. The river itself is clean within a few feet of the shore, but black ooze seems to encroach menacingly from the murk of the rest of the river.

A walkway leads out of the Glade-like atmosphere of the park from just north of the fountain. Eastward, the dark span of the bridge stretches over the vile river. Dark streets lead west and southwest into the blighted Umbra of the city.

The Umbral Glade is lit at all times as if it is the full moon.

"Nice!" she counters quickly and with enthusiasm. "Every little bit helps. And things where you see positive results already... heh, we need more of those these days. So how's it work?

There's a nod. "The first part was all her doing, making the space with so much intent that it mirrored into the Umbra, a patch of green against everything else. Now it's just..." And then Linnaea falters, and lifts a shoulder. "It'll never be a glade like this is, or, well, I don't know. But it will, if we're lucky and put effort and such into it, be something. Need to get people together to clear away some of the major things from the surrounding areas, to figure out what we can offer the Gaian spirits to make that their home, some of the larger ones to protect it."

Emma considers this for a moment. "It sounds like a good plan. Right now it's going to be hard to do anything with the bigger spirits I'd imagine. Things around here are very ... unsettled, to put it mildly." The Get and Gaian are sitting at a conversational distance from each other, with the former propped up on hands resting just a bit behind her and legs spread out in front of her. "Is it just you and Tamsin working on this?"

"I'm hoping to get some of my packmates' help," Lin says, brows furrowing. "I know that Bad-Boy will, we do most things together when possible, and when I took him there this afternoon, he thought the space was wonderful... Still not sure what else. I was only just there for the first time yesterday afternoon." The theurge drums her fingers on her knees. "I don't know enough to do it by myself. Not nearly."

Salem arrives from the direction of the web-crusty bridge going toward Kent Crossing, using his pack totem's boon to look like a dog-sized rat spirit with sleek black fur. He checks the perimeter of the glade, sticking to the shadows and then, satisfied that all is well, sheds the illusion and heads toward the pair, looking only mildly tetchy and distracted.

Emma gives a faint nod to that. "Just make sure you're helping the Sept with the bigger problems too. A side project to keep up your hope is good, but it has to be prioritized too, right?" She looks to the other at this, gauging her understanding. At the onset of motion in her peripheral view, the Get turns to focus her attention on the newest intruder. Momentary tension fades quickly when recognition is made and a single hand goes up by way of greeting.

Linnaea nods and drums her fingers on her knees a little bit more, "Like everything does," she agrees. There's a faint furrow of brow that comes with Salem's arrival, and a nod of greeting. The cliath's teeth tug at her lower lip, and her gaze follows the lunes for a brief moment.

Salem's expression turns a little wry when he sees Linnaea. "Sorry for the abrupt departure earlier," he says, settling down crosslegged on the umbral ground. Emma gets a brief, tight grin hello.

Emma looks between Linnaea and Salem, taking in their moods and reactions without comment. After a brief silence shared between the three, she switches which foot is on top and brings her packmate up to speed, "I was just getting to know Lin a bit. We'd not officially met before, oh, twenty minutes ago. She's here to think, I'm here to not think. You?"

"Life happens, 's alright," the cliath says to Salem, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "We ended up leaving not all too much later when the squirrel was properly vanquished and such, an' we could return to the city." That furrow of brow doesn't go away, though.

Salem nods to Lin, then says to Emma, "A little of both." He rubs the side of his jaw, looking wry. "Taking a break before I start the night's patrol."

"Squirrel?" she asks with a curiously raised brow before turning to Salem. A nod at that. "I've been kinda scarce again. Well, at least in that not coming out to be social way. Sorry about that..."

Linnaea almost, almost chuckles. "I pack with Bad-Boy," she notes to Emma. "Who happens to really dislike squirrels, and /additionally/ takes great joy in chasing them whenever he gets a chance. We were at the House earlier this afternoon, and well. There was a squirrel, poor bugger." Her brow furrows again though, and her gaze drifts to her knees.

Salem shrugs at Emma. "Things have been fairly quiet lately. Not /peaceful/, but... quiet. A rank challenge here and there and not much else to speak of." Lin gets a curious glance.

Emma nods, "I've at least kept up with that, heh." The chuckle is a bit self-depreciating on her answer to Salem, and so she doesn't linger long on it before grinning at Lin. "Ah. Right, right. The pack sounds like a handful. Not that I don't know what that's like." Her attention goes back to Salem, "Any closer to either of the big issues having a physical plan of action? I know that Thane and company wanted to move on that Tower mage, asked if I'd lead the combat group. Damn if I don't feel like they're not thinking straight on that one."

Linnaea rubs her forehead, and looks for a long moment at Salem. The Gaian's teeth tug at her lower lip again. "Amongst other things. I get so busy with one thing that I let the other go by, or vice versa. Poor excuse for a civil engineer /and/ a poor excuse for a theurge, most days, really. Try to do too many things to do at once and then none of them get done." Linnaea sounds... angry at herself, mostly, though there's no other indicators beyond her tone and her general posture.

Linnaea says "Which isn't even true, she's perfectly smart, she's just being stupidly hard on herself."

Salem grimaces and shakes his head at Emma's question. "If Thane has any plans, I'm not privy to them. Neither has he mentioned anything at any of the fraction-moon 'moots'" -- he actually makes little air-quotes here -- "that have been held." He shrugs, then glances at Lin. "Do you use a time management system or organizer?"

Emma pinches her brow at Salem's reply, "Well that's awesome. And also reaffirms my /not/ liking the plan." She turns to look at Lin as well, nodding at Salem's suggestions.

Use a /what/? By Lin's expression, the suggestion is akin to the invention of the wheel-- for someone who'd never seen one before. "I er... no, not really. I just get caught up in my studies and occasionally surface for air. Which has meant that I've done a lot of studies on engineering, and not so much on theurge matters beyond what's applicable at work, as I... kinda realised that I should have."

Salem gives Emma a wry and somewhat humorless little smile, then turns back to Lin. "Get yourself an organizer," he says. "Take some time to analyze your projects and break them down into smaller tasks. Then make yourself a to-do list and follow it." He pauses a beat, then adds, "And be sure to schedule yourself rest and relaxation time, too. We're none of us machines."

Emma nods to the advice. "Dry erase white boards are great for to-do lists." A pause, "So long as you don't have a four year old around." The addendum is meant as a joke, but a flicker of somberness catches the Get. "But yeah, he's spot on. And if you've realized you've short-sighted some of your responsibilities, then work to bring them up to speed. We'll always have our stronger sides, but the catch is to close the gap."

Linnaea takes a deep breath in and nods to both the other Garou. "It's..." She pauses, and tilts her head to one side. "Hard to admit that I did, even. I hate feeling inadequate, even though mostly it just prompts me to fight twice as hard." She catches her lip with her teeth again, and offers quietly. "Thanks. I'll be getting a planner. And maybe a whiteboard to go in my apartment, too, I think."

Salem pulls a knee up to his chest and rests his arm on it. "You're talking to a Get of Fenris and someone who was raised as a Shadow Lord." He glances at Emma, then back at Lin. "I think we both understand the need to... well, feel like you can't possibly make any mistakes or admit any weaknesses."

Emma gives another little nod to Salem's words. "In a moment of humble honesty Lin, I /still/ fight with that bit of nastiness. Hell, the crap going on now has me feeling like a damn hamster digging like crazy in the corner of his glass aquarium. You're not feeling anything that the rest of us haven't felt. Some to greater degree than others. But you got the right idea. You can either let it knock you down, or it can motivate you to wrap your fists and get to work."

There is another nod from the Gaian, and this time, she manages a tentative smile. "Thank you," Linnaea says to both of them, quietly. "When I was starting out with this... it was fight twice as hard and twice as much and be /better/ because otherwise no one saw past my wheelchair. Back in South Downs, no one saw past it even when it was gone, that's the reason I came back I don't say much, because at least here, well, I'm me instead of it and my tribe's big on acceptance but even /still/, feeling like I've always had something to make up for. And then when on top of that, maybe I do get my priorities turned about... the idea alone was enough to knock me off kilter a bit before I could figure out what I need to do t' right it. Try and learn more things, so I can /do/ more things, more than just theory and engineering."

Salem listens, absent-mindedly chewing on a thumbnail for a moment or two before he catches himself. "Scars linger," he says simply. "Ghosts, too."

"You're cliath. It comes with time and experience. Listen and learn from garou who've been around a while." A teasing grin catches her as she casts a nod toward Salem, "Or around more than a few awhile's." Emma sits up at this, crossing her legs beneath her, "Success is gonna come from how much worth you give yourself. Never from how much worth you perceive others to have in you. It's a tough lesson to learn, but when you do? Then you can save the making up for things, for when you actually /do/ screw something up."

The theurge has been still long enough that several lunes have gathered near her shoulder until she fidgets with one of the small braids in her hair, and nods once more, the earlier anger at herself having mostly faded. "It's better than living under a rock," she agrees. "Can't learn anything if I kept doing that. Well. Aside from that I don't want to keep doing it. I... sometimes, for brief moments, I've felt that," she adds, to Emma's later statement. "And then I guess I get too much inside my own head trying to figure something out, instead of focusing, and that's when... well." Towards Salem, there's a nod, "They do."

Salem gets to his feet. "Getting organized with your duties and your time will help. And I'm /serious/ about scheduling yourself some downtime. Anything will do, as long as you're /not/ doing work." He looks at Emma. "Feel like joining me for patrol?"

Linnaea nods again as the two ranking Garou get up, and gives a bit of a wave. "Yes Salem-rhya," she agrees, with a bit of a grin. "Suppose I'll start by hanging out here a while longer instead of going back to work," she adds. "Gaia watch."