This semester, the best part of my week (aside from having Wednesdays off, ha ha) is Friday evening; after my photography class ends, I go to eat dinner, maybe bake something at the Lake House, then trek back to the art building. The next six hours in the darkroom are ones I generally spend alone, and in complete silence. My only company are podcasts like "My Favorite Murder", "Waypoint", and "Stuff You Should Know." But no matter how much I may enjoy this alone time at the end of a long week, there's always a handful of things that remind me how lucky I am that no one else is within earshot.

1. When you just can't pry the film canister open no matter what kind of can opener you're using

2. Blindly feeling around the room (or one of those glove things if you're #fake) for scissors

3. Getting paranoid about kinks forming as you're winding the film onto the reel, so you keep unwinding and rewinding (then you get so lazy you just sacrifice a negative by cutting the whole thing in half so you can start a new reel)

4. When you can't remember if you diluted the film developer correctly or you lose track of time and forget to agitate the developing tank

5. Finally finishing the developing process and you unwind the film in the moment of truth

6. Waiting two hours for the film to dry

7. Weighing down the film paper with random objects while you arrange the negatives for a contact sheet

8. Accidentally exposing the paper or forgetting to set the timer

9. Turning away from the chemicals for a second and completely forgetting how much time you have left

10. When you just can't get the exposure right and you don't know if it's because of the filter, the chemicals, the negative, the focus, the paper, or the light. And knowing it'll probably take an hour of test strips just to figure out which one it is

11. Accidentally wasting two whole sheets of film paper in test strips before you realize that the developer is exhausted and needs to be replaced

12. The sore feet