missent

this morning, i received a message that the swarm Elections sticker has been set to unlock in the philippines today (for the may 13 general election).

i wanted to inform a fellow foursquare superuser so i typed a message and ended it with a 'mwuah!'  ->  our version of a flying kiss.

guess what, was i horrified to see that instead of to the female superuser, i somehow sent the message to a male superuser, a married one at that!  waaaahhhhhh!!!

their names do start with the same letter.  well, i've since changed the guy's name in my phone book to start with the letter Z.  and now i'm actually thinking of just deleting his number altogether.

no love lost anyway.  bye.

an SU story

on the fifth annversary of swarm, i got upgraded to SU4.  i'm sooo happy...  : )

i updated the swarm app on my phone yesterday.  so i checked what the updates were for  ->  "Bug fixes and performance improvements."

i clicked Read More and noticed the app release date:  9 May 2014.  ei, it was May 8!  5th anniversary (and also my late grandmother's birthday) the following day!

i messaged a fellow superuser and told her we both apply for upgrade that day so when it takes effect, it will be on swarm's anniversary.  she's been egging me to apply since she first got promoted two weeks ago.  i had my reasons for not applying yet but yesterday i felt excited at the prospect of being promoted on swarm's fifth anniversary and finally did.

well, today i am an SU4...  :")

i created a foursquare account on september 2, 2010
and did my first check in, at Dads Saisaki Kamayan, two days later.
(yes, you can see your first ever check-in.  just enter "first" in the swarm search field.)
i became a superuser on august 4, 2011
and was converted from SU1 to SU3 on april 22, 2017.
(highest SU level used to be 3 when i was an SU1.  with the revised leveling system introduced in 2017, the highest level became 10.)

i just fairly recently went back to doing edits actually.  i stopped cold turkey years back because once i started i could not stop, wah.  i'd be on my laptop for hours on end and i won't even eat anymore.

when i went back, i prioritized the clean up of my province.
one, charity begins at home.
two, i'm thinking there'd be more users suggesting/implementing edits for the cities lemme be the one to cradle the neglected (wahaha...  sounds sublime)...

now how do you eat an elephant?
you slice it piece by piece.  yes, one bite at a time.

i've pretty much completed first and second passes of the smaller towns.  i'm leaving the bigger towns for later.

by first pass i mean i've put cities and zip codes on the venues.  yup, sooo basic!

second pass is merging of duplicates/identification of unmerge
(uhm, SUs actually use the term rollback.
i, however, am not comfortable with it.
in the forum, everyone says rollback
and i'm the odd one out who keeps on saying unmerge, wah.
it's because i used to be a DBA and the term has a specific meaning to us.
i'd rather go with unmerge therefore.)

third would be formatting and standardization.

fourth, address completion.  save the hardest for last, haha.

every once in a while i'd create lists  ->  for possible destinations, for venues i'd raise to support, hehe

i like the approach with small wins along the way.  it seems to be working.  i was surprised to learn last february that i was among the top editors worldwide in my group level, imagine!  it was in the SU newsletter and a fellow SU e-mailed me.

and then my location is set to my province so i don't really see the aggregate philippine stats.  i see only me, sometimes one other, in my location's top contributors board.  it was only when a fellow SU told me she's third in the country did i learn that i was first, hahaha...

i'm soooo very thankful to all the SUs, practically all foreign, who have been helping me along the way, not just by implementing my edits but by providing their insights.  we've sometimes had differences of opinion on how to deal with certain cases but i know that our statements have all come from a good place and we all just have what's best in mind.  it actually is good to be hearing contrary views to widen one's perspective.

lastly, i'm not sure whether i still should mention this but to complete the story i will, i actually had a bit of a scare recently worried that the foreign SUs would shy away from helping us because of some rather, uhm, unpleasant incident.  i believe they are not closed-minded but at the same time i know that patience does run out.  i was sooo touched tears actually rolled down my eyes when a high-level SU actually took the step of posting a reassurance that they remain there for us.

i feel really privileged to be part of this community and i am grateful.

happy 5th anniversary swarm...  and happy 10th to foursquare....  : )