[2025] What happened this year to Rayque?

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 15th summary on this blog, and we reached the milestone of over 600 blogposts! As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2026!

It's been a bit of an eventful year, more than I expected it to be. So without further ado, let's get to it before I turn into a popsicle as today's blogpost is written in a basement in Switzerland, of all places. How did I end up here? Who knows.

[2024] What happened this year to Rayque?

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 14th summary on this blog. As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2025!

2024's been more or less much of the same as last year. It's been rough, but I'll manage. At least in terms of progress on my LEGO portfolio I've made some promising breakthroughs thanks to the financial aid that started last year. It's a small victory, but there's still a long and arduous road ahead.

The past couple of months have been busy, hence the lack of the usual Maple updates or anything related to the one LEGO project (Ouroboros) I've spent most of this year on. This year summary will double as a bit of a catch-up, but I'll definitely revisit these topics in future posts so that they are properly recorded on this blog. Keep in mind that because so much time went into Ouroboros this year, a lot of plans for this year couldn't happen. Sometimes it do be like that.

In my ongoing efforts to find a healthier balance with how much time I should be spending on my blog, I am going to scale down these year summaries moving forward but also take a more casual approach; matching my usual writing style. The statistical side of these summaries requires the most amount of work, and seeing as our Youtube channel has been plateauing in viewership and subscribers for many years now, I'll stick to only the interesting figures instead. 

That said, I will share my plans for the next few months of blogposts. Because it involves LEGO, MapleStory and this blog, it made more sense to discuss that here seeing as the year summary covers all topics of interest.

[2023] What happened this year to Rayque?

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 13th summary on this blog. As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2024!

To me, 2023's been a rough year. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to prevent several major setbacks that makes me unable to leave this godawful place. For the past 25 years I've been working myself to the bone trying to become a LEGO Product Designer and live a better life. But in every step of the way I keep receiving the short end of the stick.

Due to being born with abstruse health issues our government can't provide the necessary aid I need. I'm physically too disabled for a job, let alone self-sufficient. But as they can't identify what I have, they can't classify me as such, despite observations acknowledging that there is "at least something". On top of that, our government has been cost-cutting for decades on health care, which further makes it difficult to receive any aid at all. I've become stuck in a rather impossible situation to get out of, caused by an implausible scenario to begin with.

The worst part about it, is that this status quo will not change unless either they adjust the law or my health recovers. The latter is completely out of my control as the only person that is able to make any meaningful changes to my health and get me out of this mess is also the one that knowingly condemned me to this fate and chose to feign ignorance.

Despite all of it, I'll do whatever I can do. Earlier this year, I did receive some financial aid from the government. It's not much, but it's better than nothing. I'm not allowed to sit on it, but it's good enough to invest in my future. But aside from that... this year I've exhausted the last options I had left. It's going to take several miracles to get out of here, and it's clear that I still have a long journey ahead. Dangit, I really can't catch a break now can I?

Anyway, let's get to those statistics of 2023.

[2022] What happened this year to Rayque?

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 12th summary on this blog. As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2023!

To me, 2022 hasn't seen much of a change compared to last year. It's been another busy and expensive year where most of my time was spent on my LEGO projects, or work on our Youtube/blog. Work has been piling up; mainly in the form of unfinished blogposts. Those that come to mind: the Xenoblade DE article and MapleStory's Destiny revamp.

Truth is, work on these blogposts have consumed my daily life for months on end*. After working on and off on the DE article for about one-and-a-half year, I parked it to work seven months on our Multirandomness video. After that, I've started writing the Destiny blogpost. By the time that blogpost is published, a total of two-and-a-half years have gone by; and I'm not getting that back. That made me reconsider to scale down the amount of time I spend on my blog.

Moving forward, I'm going to put the Xenoblade article on ice. After publishing the Destiny blogpost, I'm going to take a break from writing long blogposts. Because as it currently is, the amount of time I've spent on these things has gotten out of hand, and it's been detrimental to my health. Knowing myself, I'll probably continue and finish the article at some point in the future, but it's clear to me that I'm currently in no shape to do so right now.

*This is also why the amount of new blogpost has considerably decreased since 2020.

With that out of the way, let's get to those statistics of 2022.

[2021] What happened this year to Rayque?

Another year's end, another summary.

This year marks the 11th summary on this blog. I have now been blogging for over a decade!
As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2022!

2021 has been an exceptionally busy year. So busy in fact, that I haven't even been able to finish my main goals for the year: the Definitive Edition article and my Hailfire Droid. Unfortunately, due to my declining health, the amount of work I can do on anything has become limited. Lately, most of my time during the day is spent sleeping... and for the few hours that I am awake though, I seem to have the same working deficiency of when I had a burnout in 2014.

That said, I'll share some information about the work that has been done on these projects, what I had planned for the year and what has been delayed to (hopefully?) next year. While I usually prefer to avoid mentioning my declining health, I do believe that in case of this year it helps to bring some insight, context or explanation to the situation.

At least this year's summary is extra thick. Anyway, let's get to those statistics of 2021.

[2020] What happened this year to Rayque?

It's that time of the year again! It's time for another summary!

This year marks the 10th summary on this blog. As always, the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2021!

2020 to me has been a pretty good year, for a change. It's been an incredibly productive year, although expensive. Regardless, among the specific milestones achieved this year are some pretty significant ones...

Anyway, let's get to those statistics of 2020.

[2019] What happened this year to Rayque?

It's that time of the year again! It's time for another summary!
This marks the 9th summary on this blog. Next year will be our tenth!

As always: the Rayque3 Staff wishes you a great 2020!

2019 to me was a year where the ups were fair but the downs were rough. For instance, this year marked the end of my time as a student as I've graduated from school. However, doing so was not an easy thing to do, and neither was graduating without consequences. From what I'm aware of, I now tick all the necessary boxes to apply for the job I've been working my entire life towards. But that of itself has become a difficult situation of its own.

Basically, I'm stuck in a limbo for the time being until I can apply for the job. Despite that I'm now ready for the job from an objective point of view, working abroad for the remainder of my life on my own requires more than just being a potential candidate for that Product Designer life. How long this "limbo" will take, I don't know. But what I do know is that it'll be time to finish my Hailfire Droid next year and hopefully be done with the Constructor in (early?) 2021!

Let's get to those statistics of 2019.

[2018] What happened this year to Rayque?

It's that time of the year again! It's time for another summary!
This marks the 8th summary on this blog.

In tradition, I (and the rest of the Rayque3 Staff) wish you a great 2019. This year has been an interesting one...

It started out to be like the majority of 2015 to 2017; a lot of things in my personal life hasn't been all that great. Fortunately, my life has been improving throughout the second half of 2018, to a point where 2018 had some actual game changers that made it worth my while. Especially one particular event that managed to give me some much needed confirmation in where I currently am in life, and where things will go from that point forward. Hopefully this (positive) momentum will stay as long as it can. Next year seems to have a solid chance of being good, for a change.

Anyway, that said - let's get to those statistics of 2018.

[2017] What happened this year to Rayque?

It's that time of the year again! It's time for another summary!
This marks the 7th summary on this blog.

In tradition, I (and the rest of the Rayque3 Staff) wish you a great 2018. To be honest about my personal life here: 2017 has been such a mess with a scarce amount of redeeming moments. I wouldn't say it's "the absolute worst year I've experienced", but I could say it's definitely among the top 10. Either way, there's not much I can do about it, and even if 2018 to me doesn't feel to become any better, I'm always optimistic and stubborn enough to give it a try.

But enough "boohoo-ing" about something that will probably be an afterthought in a few years, I know we're all here for the statistics, achievements, shameless bragging and loads of numbers! So, let's get to it!

[2016] What happened this year to Rayque?

It's the 31st of December - it's time for another summary!
As the tradition here as always, this marks the 6th summary on this blog.

In tradition, I (and the rest of the Rayque3 Staff) wish you a great 2017. Unfortunately 2016 has been a year quite similar to 2015, and I hope that 2017 can make a change in that sequence.

[2015] What happened this year to Rayque?

As the always recurring tradition on my blog, it's the 31st of December - that means it's time for another summary! This is the fifth annual summary on this blog, which also means I've been blogging for quite a while by now.

While it's relatively still early today - but at least "with a few hours left", I (and the rest of the Rayque3 Staff) wish you
a great 2016. 2015 has been a very interesting year for me - I dare to say it had one of the largest ups and downs in my life, with a lot of game changing events. This year has been a very important foundation for the next two years.

[2014] What happened this year to Rayque?

Several hours left for 2014, I (and the rest of the Rayque3 Staff) wish you a great 2015. For me, 2014 had some major milestones, but didn't feel as successful as previous years. As the tradition to every year on this blog, this post is a summary of what happened to me, Rayque.

[2013] What happened this year to Rayque?

Several hours left for 2014, I (and the rest of the Rayque3 Staff) wish you a great 2014. For me, 2013 was actually an amazingly successful year. This post is a summary of what happened to me, Rayque.

[2012] What happened this year to Rayque?

Well a few hours left for 2013, I (and the rest of the Rayque3 Staff) wish you a great 2013. For me, 2012 can be described as, a year which started new. This post is a summary of what happened to me, Rayque.

[2011] What happened this year to Rayque?

Well a few hours left for 2012, I (and the rest of the Rayque3 Staff) wish you a great 2012. For me, 2011 was actually, a year of successes and a year for failures. This post is a summary of what happened to me, Rayque.