[smurfgirl]

Balance is important. Not all parts of your life necessarily need to have the face focus during all periods of time, but some overall balance should be maintained. It's incredibly different to find this balance- it's something you have to continually work at throughout your whole life.

Balance does fall in a different place for everyone, however, many people have trouble recognizing when they have lost control things, both as high school students and later on in life. It's understandable that if students' grades are starting to suffer, the school administration would like to place reasonable limits on how much time they can devote to robotics. Spending 300-400 hours in the shop over the course of a 6-week period is getting excessive, and probably unnecessary. One of my friends mentioned to me recently that work is like a gas- it expands to fill the amount of time you have to do it. I find that this can often be true. Try to keep things in perspective- is logging 300 hours during build season really necessary or healthy? Try to be more efficient- use the time you do have in the shop wisely, and remember that you need to leave time focus on other things in life too.