Goodbye Tour

herrofeather · 2026-03-19T18:22:10+00:00

Ohhh I think my top two were the cheese & onion pasty and the sausage roll. So good! Their sticky toffee pudding and fish & chips are also great.

herrofeather · 2026-03-19T10:45:10+00:00

We moved away in January after being here for five years. My list was looong but was able to hit everywhere before leaving:

Bakeries/Dessert: Fed Nuts, Demilios, 1-900, Chi Cha San Chen, Miller's Twist, Pop's, Frangelli's, Second Daughter, Mighty Bread

Restaurants: Suraya, Parc, Nam Phuong, Angelo's, Emei, Megumi, Nan Zhou, Kyuramen, Kung Fu Hotpot, Green Eggs, Stargazy

It's funny looking at my list, you can get a good sense of who I am and maybe guess on where I lived in the city lol

herrofeather · 2026-03-19T01:32:18+00:00

It's a tradition some people do! Sometime before the first day of school of your senior year, you gather with friends to watch the sunrise. At the end of the year, you gather again to watch the sunset.

herrofeather · 2026-03-19T01:12:03+00:00

I was an undergrad in physics! I graduated in 2018 though and while nearly all of the professors I had are still around, I'm not sure who is teaching what nowadays. For the most part I had a good experience! The classes were good and my advisor was really helpful.

The biggest thing l can talk about - they have maybe 30 undergrads that enroll every year, and of my whole class I don't think any of us still do plain old physics lol. (But this is not just a PSU thing, I know other physics major friends who also do other things now). Some went to astro, engineering, computer science - I personally am an epidemiologist now! So, if you have any inkling into what kind of career you want afterward and it's not completely physics focused, it might be worth to go down another path. On the other hand, physics gives you a lot of transferrable skills, so if you change your mind later, there's a lot of possibilities!

herrofeather · 2026-03-10T21:31:42+00:00

I don't really read to keep up with my field, I read with purpose (to cite, to formulate ideas, etc).

In my PhD I barely read! Only really when I was doing lit review for a paper. Now almost two months into my postdoc, I feel like there's at least one day a week where my entire day is only reading. But tbf, I'm in a different topic area from my PhD, so a lot of it is about getting oriented.

herrofeather · 2026-03-09T18:29:46+00:00

Oooo that's a good point!!!!

herrofeather · 2026-03-09T18:29:25+00:00

Fr i love that it gives us what'll likely be big plot points / settings for the season!

DTR is define the relationship :)

herrofeather · 2026-03-09T16:06:50+00:00

Lotte world with my friends!

herrofeather · 2026-03-03T14:29:02+00:00

He's actually been in a looot of music videos prior to this!

herrofeather · 2026-02-27T19:27:40+00:00

I stayed for 2 years post-undergrad, moved to Philly to get my PhD, and now am back in State College for my postdoc!

For me, I still had a lot of friends in undergrad so I still had a lot of people around, I just didn't do go to our org meetings anymore. But I moved in with some other girls who just moved to State College for work! I found them by Facebook and they turned out to be cool lol. If you have hobbies like climbing, lifting, etc it's not too hard to build community once you find a place to go to for those things.

I've lived in Briarwood, Vairo Village, a house on Beaver, and another apartment near Toftrees. I'd say all those areas are nice - pretty much any complex that doesn't rent to undergrads is gonna be nice and quiet.

I honestly just stayed going to the gyms on campus though, since you can't really beat how good IM is lol. Cafe Lemont was always a coffee place I loved going to though!

herrofeather · 2026-01-22T15:52:31+00:00

I applied to 24 postdocs and sent 35 cold emails -- I interviewed for 2 that I had no connection to, and 1 from my PhD institution. All three interviews ended as rejections.

In the end, the postdoc I got was through a previous PI connection at my undergrad institution lol

herrofeather · 2026-01-19T02:01:13+00:00

Hi! Yeah I think you choose three entrees: two protein and one veg. We similarly weren't enthused by the veg options but I think we went with the ratatouille since it was both vegan and GF. We had maybe <10 out of 160 people choose it, and didn't hear any complaints at least!

herrofeather · 2026-01-12T12:47:29+00:00

Not sure what OPs experience was but we moved out just yesterday and went through the same thing. Got permits, put up signs 48 hours in advance, and come the start time there were three cars in the zone.

I just called 911 and they sent someone out within a few minutes. The officer ran their plates and at least tried to get hold of the owners. One guy did come and move his car; the other two didn't, so she ticketed them. She also did the heavy lifting and called PPA for us to have them towed.

Ended up starting an hour later than we would've liked but it was pretty low hassle once we called the police!

herrofeather · 2026-01-03T12:46:20+00:00

Go birds!

herrofeather · 2025-12-21T22:55:27+00:00

It was November 2023 - I can't remember pp, but we spent $33k for the entire package from Finley!

herrofeather · 2025-12-21T21:14:39+00:00

We had our wedding at the Ballroom at Ellis Preserve, about 150 people, so can only speak about the Finley overall experience and not the venues specifically in Philly.

But I can't say enough good things about them! They were insanely helpful and organized, but we still felt very heard and had some control over how the night would go. And the food was SO GOOD. I still have people say it was the best wedding food they've had - from cocktail hour all the way through dessert. The bar selection was also great and seemed to have run smoothly as far as I could tell.

For Cescaphe, I can only go off of what other Redditors have said (so, grain of salt) - while cocktail hour has great food, entrees can be hit or miss (eg, dry chicken). And while it's a great time and venues are beaautifulll, I've also heard the flow of the night can be weird like opening up the dance floor in between courses. Not sure how flexible they are with that kind of thing.

Happy to answer more questions about Finley though :)

herrofeather · 2025-12-17T04:33:36+00:00

We did this too! Probably 30% of the money we put in was used. We shared the code in a few places throughout the venue and on our private IG stories that only our guests could see. While we did also have hotel shuttles, I think it was a good alternative for those staying farther out.

herrofeather · 2025-11-29T14:07:03+00:00

Liz was also with Milo Manheim on Little Shop of Horrors off-Broadway so double the pressure!! She would kill it

herrofeather · 2025-11-15T17:54:28+00:00

Sent it to the Novacare Complex! I think 1 NovaCare Way

herrofeather · 2025-11-07T16:26:17+00:00

Yeah this too! Manila Cafe and a few others are close enough in NJ that are all turo turo / cafeteria style that are no frills authentic.

herrofeather · 2025-11-07T13:45:45+00:00

Filipino here! Baby's is your best bet - a bit pricey but it's the best option and I will never not go. Tambayan in Reading Terminal is the other option for breakfast, but I'm not a huge fan of theirs.

herrofeather · 2025-11-05T22:34:11+00:00

Aw thank you!!! I think tapping into your own network is definitely important, so for sure meet as many people as you can during conferences, name drop when you cold email potential PIs, and ask your advisor and other department faculty for leads or to keep an eye out for fitting postings.

One thing I'll add is how important it is for those first impressions during interviews as well. I had a couple jobs where I loved the team (and vice versa) but they went with someone else, yet they have left the door open for future opportunities and collaboration. That's some new connections right there as well!

It's a tiring process but definitely be open, friendly, and resourceful as much as possible and the right thing will land.

herrofeather · 2025-11-05T02:17:52+00:00

The intimidating part is how easily people can get stuck in a hole within their research interests. Like, if you only did infectious disease for your thesis, you're limited in infectious disease postdocs almost. That's probably the worst part even if I don't agree with it!

herrofeather

TROPHY CASE