No.

So today, I said "no". It was just a few minutes ago, really. It feels weird, because it feels as if I am letting someone down or being too lazy to do something, but really, I think it is the only thing I can do.
What happened?
Well, as you may have noticed from the lack of blogposts, the last 1.5 weeks or so has been one of the busiest periods I've had in a long time. I'm studying, which should take 40 hours a week, but took a bit more in this case because I was preparing a discussion piece which I will present later today. On top of that, I worked for 20 hours on some publishing assignments. That makes around 60 hours. Added to which are various committees I'm on, birthdays, visits to parents, quiz nights, lunch/tea/coffee/dinner with friends, etc. So it was busy.
Now next week, I have a "reading week", which means that I don't have any scheduled classes but have to do exams or write essays. It just so happens that I won't be taking any of those, so I am basically free to do what I want. So I decided to do some work, and am going to do a big project for the aforementioned publishing company. This starts on Wednesday. So, they asked me whether I wanted to do some more assignments like the one I've been doing last week. And I said "no". I still have some stuff I need to do for classes, I need to figure out how the system for my next project works, and basically, I want to have some time off. I've been working close to 12 hours each day for the last week, and I feel like Bilbo said it; stretched thin, like butter scraped over too much bread.
But then immediately after I told them "sorry, I can't do it, I have other stuff to do", I felt guilty. Like I am letting them down (I am not, because I never said I would be available or do anything) or being a lazy git (don't think so, really, I've enough other stuff that needs to be done).
I mean, right, I want to have some time to do the things that I like to do, like blogging or painting or reading (seriously, I've been reading the same book for two weeks now, and it only has 180 pages!), or just doing nothing. Finish watching the first GoT season on DVD so I can dive into the second season when it arrives (we were going to watch one ep every night for 10 days so we would be ready on April 1st, we've watched 2 so far). I need, to put it in a vaguely disgusting "hip" term, some me-time.
And that's probably why I feel guilty, because I'm supposed to be this ambitious career girl, and I'm not supposed to need time to myself until I have achieved all I wanted to achieve, and then I'll definitely not have time for it anymore. This is not right, is it? I mean, I should be allowed to have a free weekend, not working until 10 in the evening on a Saturday night, and then finish the preparation for of my classes on Monday and Tuesday, and then dive into the next project on Wednesday. But as you can see, I feel the need to justify this, to myself, to my "employer" (I'm just doing projects for them, it's nothing "official" with a contract or anything), and to the world. Clearly, there must be a lot of pressure to perform, to spend all of your time in a "useful" way, to maximise your CV and experience, and be ready to devote your life to your ambitions. It's no wonder that 40% of all students (said an article in the uni newspaper) can't sleep, feel depressed, burned out, or way too stressed. There is too much pressure. And sadly, most of that pressure is probably coming from us, we're doing this to ourselves, because we think it's what others expect from us.
So today, I said "no". And now I'm stressed about that.