You can't buy alcohol in Pennsylvania grocery stores.

At work today, someone wrote a story about how one of the big grocery stores in town is opening a 'beer cafe.' I was reading the Facebook comments on this story, not really understanding what a beer cafe is or why it was significant, and someone said something about how they wish they could just go into a convenience store and pick up a case of beer.

My first thought was, what kind of convenience store doesn't sell alcohol?!

Well, apparently Pennsylvania is one of 18 states that is a alcoholic beverage control state. That means the state government owns and sells all alcohol throughout the whole state out of a store called Wine and Spirits. Where I am, the hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (except Sundays), so there is no waltzing into Walmart at midnight when you need some beer.

According to Wikipedia, this crazy law stems from the repeal of prohibition all the way back in 1933. Some states continued their own prohibition, other states created the government monopolies where the state controls all sales, and the sane states started the private license system where you can buy your groceries and alcohol in the same place.

I went into one of these Wine and Spirit stores, and since alcohol is the only thing it sells, it contained a very wide selection of all sorts of drinks. The prices looked normal to me, too. I just find it very annoying (and weird and backwards) that I can't just buy a bottle of wine while I'm at the grocery store.

And I miss my favorite $6.99 bottle of cheap, delicious Missouri wine.

Lancaster's covered bridges are very scenic.

While searching Pinterest for things to do in my new home of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I found this awesome map of the all the covered bridges in the area! I drove the scenic parks and preserves route, which took to me to eight of the 25 bridges in Dutch Country.

The route took me through some areas heavily traveled by horse and buggies which was an unusual sight (for me) to see! Check out my pictures below:

Willow Hill Covered Bridge

Eshleman's Mill Covered Bridge. Lot's of horse and buggy traffic on this one!

Herr's Mill Covered Bridge

Neff's Mill Covered Bridge

Lime Valley Covered Bridge

Coleman Covered Bridge

Baumgardener's Covered Bridge

Kurtz's Mill Covered Bridge

I'm still living with cockroaches.

They wait until I think I'm safe, and then BAM! Another cockroach shows up. This time it was (dead) in my reusable grocery bag that hangs RIGHT NEXT TO MY BED.

This one is scarier than the last few because now I can't get the image of roaches crawling on me in my sleep out of my head. I'm also faced with a serious dilemma about what to do with the bag. My instinct is to just throw it away with the cockroach in it, but this is my Sainsbury's Olympic sponsor bag from London. It's also huge and can always fit all my groceries. It's mine and the cockroach can't have it!!!

I moved the bag into the kitchen to hang on a closet door that is not right next to my bed. I dumped the dead roach out into the trash, and, it took me a few days but, I finally washed out the bag and it is ready to hold the food I will consume.

LATEST UPDATE: The bug people came back a few days after the sighting to spray and leave their poisonous bug traps, and I haven't seen any roaches since.

I'm living with cockroaches.

I thought that moving into the city and up to the 21st floor of a building would get me away from the bugs. I was wrong.

It was the end of July when I saw the first one. I was getting ready to leave for work, making breakfast in my kitchen when I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. I look over and see this HUGE thing twitching on my floor. It took about .5 seconds to register it was a cockroach. The most important thing in this situation was to remain calm. I needed to get out the door as to not be late, the cockroach could not be left alive, and there was no one else around to save me.

Lucky for me, the cockroach was upside down so it couldn't run away. I grabbed my can of Raid (for spiders and scorpions, but it worked just fine) and sprayed it. It twitched and tried to run away, but since it was upside down, it just ended up sliding around the floor. I captured it under a bowl and left.

I told the desk attendant at my complex that there was a cockroach in my apartment, and asked if they could get rid of it. I think he felt really bad for me, and asked some guy who looked like a custodian if he could take care of it. He said yes, and later that day when I got home from work there was no cockroach and my bowl was back on my counter.

Five days later, I almost got into my bathtub with another one. A not-so-gentle reminder to always, always, always check the tub for monsters before stepping in. This one wasn't quite as big as the first one, but still pretty big and disgusting. I washed it down the drain.

I googled it later, which was a huge mistake, because I ran into a bunch of pest control websites that said if you see one cockroach in your home there's probably a million more living in your walls and that one just got pushed out because there were too many. Cue the panic. I also found out that cockroaches have trouble balancing on slick surfaces, like kitchen tile, and can flip over easily on them. I'm assuming that was how the first one ended up on its back.

Then I did what any person living in fear would do. I armed myself with a dangerous weapon.

I also told my apartment complex and they called the bug people to come spray. The bug people came just a few days later and I went for about two weeks without seeing another one.

Then, just as I thought I was safe, they struck again. I was scanning the shower for monsters before stepping in one morning when I noticed a tiny little black thing. Upon closer inspection, I saw it had little legs and giant antennas. It was a little baby cockroach.

That means there was a cockroach nest somewhere in my walls.

They were having babies.

They are creating an army.

The cockroaches are after me.

I quickly washed it down the drain, but when I came home from work that afternoon there were MORE and one of them was in my LOOFA. A cockroach! In my loofa! So I drenched my shower in Raid and now I throughly spray my entire apartment every morning. I also replaced my loofa.

It's currently been about a week and a half since the last cockroach sighting. But they are probably hiding out in my walls, just waiting for me to let my guard down before attacking. If I mysteriously go missing one day, it was probably the roaches.

Alumni refers to a group of graduates.

I subscribe to this fun, daily newsletter called theSkimm (endorsement: it's awesome, you should sign up for it at theSkimm.com). In addition to sending you the top headlines and a brief paragraph outlining the important details, they started adding in a section at the bottom called 'Thing to Know.'

About two weeks after I graduated, theSkimm provided the answer to the question that had been gnawing at my brain for weeks:

I am an alumna, my brother is an alumnus, all of my girlfriends are alumnae, and my graduating class are alumni. I changed my Twitter bio (which previously stated I was an alum... still accurate!) right after I read this.

Too bad I never learned this in college!

I DID learn things in college.

Usually after I take a test in a class, or the semester ends and the class is over, I immediately forget everything that I have learned. That way, my brain can make space for the new things I need to learn for the next test or class. It makes me feel like I haven't really learned anything at all (but I least I walked away with a good grade!).

As my college career starts to wind down, I have started to realize I have learned some things during my four years here at Mizzou. (Please note: this is not an all-inclusive list)

• Reading your emails (and learning which ones you need to read, which to skim) keeps you in the loop. People who don't read their emails suck and waste everyone's time because then you just have to repeat or explain to them what you emailed them.
• Textbooks are SUCH a waste of money. More often than not, at the end of the semester I ended up with a $100 textbook I never even touched. So, wait until class starts and see if you really need it, and then even wait until the first exam to see if you really, really need it.
• Studying abroad was the best experience ever and everyone should do it.
• All difficult classes should be out of the way before your senior year. Senioritis is very real and you don’t want to make things any more difficult for yourself.
• I should have taken my capstone in my second to last semester, instead of my very last semester. I learned a lot of things and worked on a pretty cool project, and it would have been nice to be able to put that on my resume (plus take advantage of some of the professional connections I made). But when I started my job search, the project was only just beginning so I didn't have a lot of things to say about it yet.
• Job searching is the worst thing ever.
• College was way too short and hands down the best four years of my life.

Senioritis is real.

I thought being a senior in high school was tough, but being a senior in college is SO much worse. When high school was over I still had college, but now that college is over there's only real life, and real life doesn't have classes and tests and homework. Plus, I have an internship for after graduation so unless I screw something up terribly I'm okay for the next three months.

As I enter my last full week of school ever (EVER) my level of caring and ability to continue doing any school work is declining drastically. I'm pretty proud of myself because I kept up my work ethic for almost the entire semester. It wasn't until my calendar switched into May and I realized how close I actually am to being done with school forever that senioritis really started kicking in.

My senioritis is so bad right now that I'm blogging about it and I'm just going to hope this post is good enough for a passing grade for my blog post this week.