i think it's great!
I love your writing Javabeans, but the guest bloggers are also all good.
I hope you'll do most of the contents like now, since well, this is YOUR blog anyway. If I want to read more news, I can always look from other site, but here, I can find high quality writings, and fun, smart discussion. I like that this site has minimal spam and useless comments. The community is just awesome.

I wish I can write better, so that I can contribute....but I already happy now as a reader!! ;)

Anyway, LOVE your blog, and hope Dramabeans will last for very very very...... long time!

Snikki:

Apparently Mookie, Ockoala and Belleza (Team MOB) formed an alliance to defeat My Love Patzzi.

I am less than thrilled at their formation and hunting of My Lovely Patzzi at its apparent weak-sauce. (*BUT, 1. it's not weak-sauce. 2. Jang Nara as Yang Song Yi is the cutest thing ever, and My Lovely Patzzi should be required watching as a standard in realistic k-drama creation).

The fact that Team MOB roams the hinterlands of dramabeans, unhindered, is alarming, and I think javabeans should form a separate taskforce to defeat Team MOB.

Team MOB FTL!

@15, mie -

I would call it playful sniping. :D

There are greater issues at play, with respect to perspectives and how we see the world, unfiltered (me) or filtered through crazy jeans (them)... but on the whole, I am sure that deep down, they all just want to be in a Kim Jae Won / Kim Rae Won hug sandwich and are a little jealous that Jang Nara got it with no effort on her part, just by being herself, be it annoying (as they think, wearing their crazy jeans), or cute, adorable and fun (as I think). :)

LOL. Samsooki needs to give this Patzzi/Jang Nara thing a rest! Perhaps he doesn't realize that some women (or people in general) who initially were ambivalent about both were pushed to the other side because they don't respond well to being told they're idiots for thinking Jang Nara is not the bee's knees? Just sayin' dude, at a point your arguments only hurt yourself! ;)

And if My Love Patzzi were required viewing and touted as a kdrama "standard," I think we'd actually LOSE drama fans. (Oh snap.)

@16, really -

You know, this is a topic that I find really interesting, and I hope that this will be taken with broad lattitude.

I will speak only from my own experience.

1. Recapping is both fun and work for me. The fun comes from every part of it. Watching the raws, re-watching with subs, if any, or doing my own translation, discussing it with knowledgeable people, reading what other people have to say, thinking about it, then writing and screen capping. Putting it altogether in a single post, with all the HTML coding and everything else, and making each recap coherent and clear, is less fun, but I like the design / layout challenges as well.

2. For City Hall, I used a style of recap that I thought fit with the story. So, there was a bit of melo-drama in the writing, and I tried to be transparent with how I felt. This made the recaps a lot of fun, but it also meant that I had to spend a lot of time doing more than just saying what happened and then taking a few screen caps.

3. For Chuno, I'm going with a more bang-bang style, trying to keep it tighter and more on the action. This makes the recaps shorter and less opinionated. But the actual process itself is taking just as long (or longer), because i'm recapping without subs and so translating and understanding takes a while. It might take me a couple of viewings before I start to get it, and then there are the dictionaries on my lap so that I don't miss stuff.

Overall, for me (and not for anyone else), a single recap can take anywhere from 5 hours to about 14 hours, depending on a lot of factors, including difficulty of understanding, how many screen caps to take, how interested I was in the episode, etc.

So yes, it can take a while, and yes, it makes for a lot of sacrifice when you have other obligations at work or at home or both.

But....

I think that there is something to be said for consistency and for pushing through the inertia. See, for example, the break I had to take with respect to the City Hall recaps. I'm not pointing any fingers at myself, but honestly, I am still responsible for having taken the break, and I should be held accountable for that. I had a good reason, but there is always going to be a reason not to recap. And regardless of the reason, I let people down by not sticking to it. And for that, I do feel responsibility.

The one thing that blows my mind about javabeans is how consistent she is about the recaps that she does, and with everything else.

So it works both ways.

I do it for fun, and I hope that people are understanding that I am not perfect and I do have a lot of things on my plate. And I would hope that people would understand that I am working as quickly as I can to finish things that I have committed to doing.

But I also realize that once I've committed to it, I should stick with it, if only because there is a principle involved. Not because I owe the readers, but because once you've started something, you really should do what you can to finish.

***

It's a balancing act to be sure.

Even if I see things from the perspective of a recapper, I also see things from the perspective of a k-drama fan, because that's how I started, just being a fan of javabeans.

:D

@18, javabeans -

hehe. I might have to introduce new characters in my repertoire of children's stories revolving around my bear hero - the too intelligent mountain lionesses....named.... umm, jaraboons, dakee manel and hjkion, along with their pals, belleta & moopie the cynical magpies....

Oh right, how could I forget obtoala, the mild mannered koala bear, tricked into hanging out with belleta and moopie, the cynical magpies? Or Minkdangon213, the very lovely and even-keeled cougar who supports our bear hero from time to time?

I think it's awesome that you have guest writers who do quality blog posts/recaps and present different interests and povs!

Back to being serious (what? i can't do that?), re: Samsooki's point about timeliness:

That's the balance I fight with, because I absolutely agree with the point of feeling responsible for finishing what I've started. Or not taking too long to get back to something I've pushed aside. Sol Pharmacy is a big source of guilt for me at the moment, but I can't help it because it's just not my priority.

On the other hand, as someone who's just begun her fourth (fourth!?) year of blogging on this site, lemme tell ya that there's no faster way to burn out than to let those external factors push you so that you're cutting into your sleep time to get something done faster faster faster. Or declining a social activity because that's the night the big finale airs. Even when I moved from LA to another city, I was aware of timing it to avoid missing big drama episodes. And when that happens, I give myself a big smack on the head and say, "What the heck are you doing?" Then I step back and make myself go play, go shopping, go hang out with friends. Because the moment this blog becomes work, or drives my life, is the moment I've effed up my priorities.

It's incredibly fun and rewarding, but it's also really easy to fall prey to that pressure. And I know that it must be just as demanding for people who are perfectionists with super-high standards, as I suspect Samsooki and hjkomo both are. So as the blog admin, I try to emphasize as much as possible to do this on your own time, your natural schedule, let your enthusiasm carry you but NEVER the demands, pleas, or expectations of others.

@36,

err...... As a rule, recapping requests (to start a new series, an old series, or to continue one that has been started) are problematic at best... even well-intentioned and friendly requests.

Even if the request is made just for fun, a request to recap puts recappers in a difficult position of either taking on the burden (in addition to the workload that they already have) or rejecting it (which makes them feel bad for saying no).

To be honest, I don't have that much free time, and I am always struggling to manage competing interests for my time. And the same goes for other guest recappers.

For example, most recappers you see on dramabeans are also translators for WITHS2. Taking a look at the list of guest dramabeans recappers and most of them are also fansubbers for k-dramas, including thunderbolt, Dahee Fanel, hjkomo, dw4p, and soyjoy. Javabeans is also a WITHS2 translator. And I've worked with both WITHS2 and BON fansubbing groups, and I am trying to get back into it after a few months of struggling to balance life, k-dramas, fansubbing and recapping.

And as much work as it is to do recaps, the pressure to create timely subs is much greater. For example, if you take a look at the number of things that dw4p and soyjoy have done, just from a WITHS2 translating perspective, over the same period of time that they've done recaps for dramabeans, and you would be amazed that they aren't hooked up to ventilators and have a few humdifiers trying to keep them alive. The same goes for thundie, who solo'ed the editing for Queen Seondeok subs for many many months and managed to run her own blog, and do other things at the same time, like guest blog, make reviews, etc. As if running her own blog wasn't difficult enough!

So, to answer your question -

If I had unlimited time, and if I were single and not married with a child, if I didn't have a full time job as an attorney, if I didn't have other things going on related to k-dramas like fansubbing and translating, and if I didn't have friends and family also to spend time with, and if I didn't really need sleep... then, yes, I'd consider recapping My Love Patzzi, along with many of my other favorites, including my favorite drama of all time, MNIKSS, which hasn't been recapped as far as I can see by anyone. That's not to say that I won't recap MLP or MNIKSS or any other drama, but I can't say yes or no to anything else right now.

And also, I'm a bit uncomfortable getting requests for recapping, even if I had a mind to recap something, because I really just want to do the things that I want to do, and not what people ask me to do - then things become a burden rather than just for fun. So, there's no good way to answer it other than, "I'll get back to you?"

(I hope you understand - i am totally being honest and I mean no disrespect and I am not saying this with any amount of attitude)

^ Thanks for clarifying your stance. Just to offer my own opinion, I don't mind requests. Worst case scenario, I don't do it. As long as requests don't turn into demands, I'm fine with them. For instance, I'd written off Last Scandal but I'd read some enthusiastic comments on this site and gave it a try, and was happy about that choice. On the other hand, some people get a little overzealous with the asking and, um, when that gets obnoxious it actually turns me OFF the drama.

Just a little suggestion, how about guess blogging has their own special page?
Aggh.. nevermind.. just woke up and feel like typing... lols..

@mimi,
I know you didn't direct your comment to me, but just to comment on your comment, 2-in-1 recapping isn't actually that much of a time saver. At least not in my book. Writing the recap is the fastest part of the process for me; it's watching, screencapping, and formatting that is really time-consuming, and I'd have to watch the same number of episodes regardless.

This is the first "Blog" that I consider to be a "part off" :O)
JB Thank you very much for your hard work and for always treating your audience with care and respect. I like the fact that I do not feel that I am being "talk down" by the way you write, on the other hand you and your guest contributors as far as I am concern are a "top notch" kind of guys/girls, different styles, different perspectives, but the thing that binds us all together is the affinity we all here have for that "little thing call K-dramas" we all have laugh, cry, hate, smile, etc...a little bit deeper because all of your hard work... and for that I am thank full... Thank you again and keep up the good work. Salud to you all....... : O )
P.S For the first time I just read the words in your little girl cartoon logo...LOL you are totally cool!!!!