AHHHHH! Hello everyone (well, I guess just me for now). Despite the amateur appearance of this website, this has been about two months in the making. I kept pushing this off for weeks at a time; 1 part laziness, 3 parts anxiety about whether or not I should even do this.

A formal introduction: My name is Moonie 🙂 But that’s the more cutesy spelling of it; the ‘actual’ spelling of it – according to the person who calls me so (my mom) – is ‘Muni’. It’s a pet name, and every person in my family seems to have one for me. 

Anyway, I just wanted this first post to be introductory. It is currently 10:32pm, and I’m at the end of what has been an emotionally exhausting, yet unproductive day. I’m still in the process of finalizing the blog, learning how to customize it, but I figured if I don’t get some blog posts ready in the meantime, I might actually never do it. I felt heightened anxiety at specific moments throughout the day (and I can still feel some remnants of it lurking in the background). All this mental exhaustion, yet no work to show for it. *sigh* Except, maybe, this? 

You (person whose existence I still doubt) may be wondering why I felt so anxious. Good question. Generally, I tend to get nervous easily, over the smallest of things. For example, today, I worried because:

I feel like I’m not (going to be) a good researcher. I’m in the training stage of research (a first year Masters student) and I keep feeling like I’m not quite catching on as quickly, I’m not inquisitive enough, not passionate enough, or any of the characteristics that I think make a good researcher, lack of which will lead to my ultimate failure (according to my anxious mind).

I did engineering in my undergrad, and yet I am failing to keep up with a class that’s based on engineering principles I supposedly have sufficient knowledge on. Already, I have moments where it feels surreal that I’m considered a whole Chemical Engineer, when I really and truly struggled through this degree, and for most courses just wanted to get by. 

One of my classes involves group work. Need I say more?

Have I been nice enough today?

Am I hard working enough?

Am I ambitious enough?

Do my labmates like me? Do I fit in?

Etc.

In the thick of my anxious thoughts, I was led to find some verses to cling on to. I am a Christian, however, I am not so good at reaching out to God amidst the times of trouble. It is often in hindsight that I sit and think ‘Wow, God really was there’. I don’t know why that is; perhaps the doubt that God will come through, or choosing the comfort that comes from wallowing in my circumstances. However, I do want to get better at leaning in during the tough moments. I want to train my mind to do what Colossians 3:1-4 instructs, and to learn to meditate on God’s love, which does not care about whether or not I’m a good researcher, whether I made a mistake, whether I’m truly a ‘good’ engineer or not, etc. As I write these things, I want to point out that the purpose of doing so is so that I can get better at resting in these truths. Today, I was not so good at that.

I’ll stop here for tonight, lest this turn into a novel. Although, I do love reading novels; but unlike this, they have to be very well written (I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to that).

If you’re interested, here are some verses I stumbled upon today in the midst of all the anxiety: Joshua 1:9, Isaiah 40:10, Philippians 4:6-7, Psalm 136:26, Matthew 11:28.

[Insert (hip? cool?) sign out phrase I will eventually figure out here]

-Moonie x.