Switzerland Exchange

oops, i forgot to make weekly entries. This month we were just busy creating the story, concept art stuff and storyboards for our ident for adult swim.
we're in a team of 4 ppl and i'll be art director. someone else is helping me with character designs and backgrounds. the two other teammates are working on the story. based on the story and the entire worldbuilding they've created we have to design it.

Dude finally i'm making so much progress on my artistic skills with design. I've made so many different drawings, i've never done that before and i am still learning which designs fit the world better than the others, in agreement with the other teammates and my teachers.
Finally i'm also applying the visual arts better in animation. We got these presentations about visual development IN ANIMATION, which i missed SO much in my school back home. Because we only got to learn how to make new ideas and i was like what the fuck is this i don't need this bullshit. sorry, but my teacher never worked on any animation work and he's giving us visual development?? i feel like the school wasn't making a good decision if i gotta be really honest. Some assignments were really fun and useful so those were nice.

But at this school in Switzerland we get visual development class from someone who worked as an art director in multiple animations and got to tell us about how to make interesting visuals in an animation. Also he FINALLY explained color. damnit my school can do better because i think visual development is one of the KEY elements in animation. Like why are we even making animations besides telling stories? to captivate the audience to make the story much more stronger by using color, shapes, composition, etc. to create new worlds within the story. why do these characters stand out? what do these backgrounds represent? why do they look like that? why is this green and the other is purple? are these symbols telling something? why is this shot darker than the other shot? how can we make it more frightening? how can we make it more happy? how can we make it more serious? how can we make it more surprising? ETC. one of the things that shape the entire world around the story. VERY IMPORTANT. My home school should do better tbh, but i am very glad i got the chance to go here to HSLU.
sorry, i got crazy fomo because now i'm regretting going here instead of my home school tbh, oops.

Anyways, besides school i am also surrounded by crazy looking mountains. a couple weeks ago i went on one of the most beautiful hikes of my life. the only sentence i could speak during the hike was: 'this is so beautiful'. We got an entire panorama on top of this mountain surrounded by a sea of clouds where mountain tops reached above it like little islands. i want to hike that trail again. But there are so many other trails that are even more beautiful i HAVE to hike them.
At the same time i found out there are alot of rare endangered flowers around mountaintops, like the Silver Thistle that i've seen a couple times. I really want to find the Edelweis as well.
I want to walk and hike around so many places but i'm somehow scared all the time that something terrible will happen. now if i don't wear this specific necklace i'm always wearing that i've made during flute camp, my day will become unlucky and worse. i don't want to think about that. a classmate has solo traveled a lot and she said there will be a very low chance that something terrible will happen. i want to be more free and i really don't want to think about all the shit my parents keep saying to me because they are super overprotected. if they keep saying 'be careful, watch out for other people, don't go with a random person, don't do this don't do that' i get incredibly anxious and that will make me miss out on so many experiences in my life. but even when they're not saying it it's still engraved and hardwired in my brain. i don't want to be anxious anymoooreee.

P.S: the person who worked at adult swim worked on The Amazing World of Gumball which is insane. He gave us some story ideas and feedback and it was super helpful.

anxious when pitching a story so i made sure someone else in my group was presenting it. sorry, i'm getting slightly dizzy whenever i am standing in front of a few people.

Anyways, we were trying to make up stories for our clients: Adult Swim, Amnesty and Kurzfilmnacht. A few tricks for making stories we've used are:

• mindmap -> write down as many associations as possible
• writing down random: figure, action, scenery and mix them together
• writing down a random object in some paper, put it in a bin folded, pick out a random paper and make as many associations as possible based on the randomly picked object.

The thing i'm proud of is adding suggestions to certain ideas.
But what i've noticed is that i go along peoples ideas too quick. I should say more what i think of things. But that's because i haven't consumed enough media lately to be able to grasp some inspirations.

WHAT WAS MY PERSONAL BIGGEST SUCCES?
currently, animating a person through some corridors getting followed by aphex twin

WHAT WAS MY BIGGEST CHALLENGE, AND WHY?
giving people feedback. to think critically about someone elses work.

WHAT WAS ONE THING IN MY WORKFLOW THAT I WOULD DO AGAIN NEXT TIME?

NOT doing straight ahead animation tbh.

WHAT IS ONE THING I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY IN MY WORKFLOW NEXT TIME?
questioning why i make this.

WHAT DID I LEARN ABOUT MY OWN CREATIVE PROCESS?
reflecting is key. giving feedback is so important because it will benefit both of you. The person who will receive it gets more ideas while i discover something new about myself.

IS THERE SOMETHING ELSE I'VE LEARNED?
The teacher drew some sort of a chard to show how to get out of your comfortzone but still feel you're quite a bit comfortable in doing so.
You got 'safespace' in the middle of the circle and way outside of it you got the space that's completely out of your comfortzone. But right in between those two things you got the 'bravespace'. Reminds me of what david bowie said in an interview that you show greater growth and ideas when you're right in between the comfortable and the uncomfortable. It just takes only one step to get there and it takes courage to do so. And i think you can add that to anything in life right now. I could use it to get better at communicating with others by making a small step like joining them for lunch, by just being in their presence.

First day of school was yesterday and it was super messy because my brain is fucking dumb. There was this introduction happening on the ground floor and i asked someone what it was and they were like: 'yeah its for everyone who studies here.' so i was like oh, but i have to go to my class at 9:00. And they were like: 'you can do that after.' So i was hella confused and stayed there eventhough my teacher said in the mail that i can go join them.
Dude i could've just went upstairs to see if anyone is in that class or not and then leave if nobody was there. UGH. After a talk was done i saw animation people and realized hours later i accidentally joined 1st year like omygooooood that's when i knew i hate myself.

A couple hours later i joined my right class, 2nd year, while they were already busy with a project. I joined a group immediately and it was fun. The teacher told me about some important stuff what the schedule was and i was like alright okay nice.
But when class was over i was like oh its done so imma head home. When i got home i looked at my phone and i saw a message a couple hours ago that there was a fucking party going on and i was again confused for who it was. Bro nooobody, not even the teacher, said anything about a party to me. It's an annual animation intro party and everyone got shirts, there was karaoke, shared dinner, a whole fest going on. I feel miserable because now i can't talk to people around me easily because they don't know me at all and i'm hella nervous when meeting new people and i feel so awful when i don't know what to say. Not even during group projects now. Godamnit. Parties are more easy to meet new people, aaaaaagggghh.

I was still super amazed by the school itself because it's HUGE and they got CUBICLES for animators finally. However even through all of that i feel incredibly lonely and scared. I want to connect but don't know how and i don't want to seem weird all the time because i don't know what to say. I overhtink too much but in the heat of the moment you can't escape that.

Yesterday it was very messy which stressed me out so much. I went by train through Frankfurt and Basel which took me more than 9 hours because of delays. Thankgod i signed up for a Buddy system where you get a buddy showing you around town. She wanted to help me carry my luggage to my apartment which is so sweet. As i catched the train to Luzern i realized my data wasn't working at all. So i was stressed my buddy wouldn't be at the station at 20:30. I was praying if calling worked and finally it did. I was meeting up with her at the station and she brought her friend with her who was going to go back to her home country India soon. They were both telling me all about the train system which is handy. We first bought some food because i haven't eaten well the entire trip. They bought two cheesecakes and a pizza. I also bought a pizza. Dude Switzerland is so expensive. Every product is minimum 2 CHF, which is 2,14 Euro's which is 2,51 dollar, which is stupid.

When we arrived at my apartment my tennor didn't send me an email of a code for a box where my key is. the last mail i received from them saying: 'Your key 407 is in a box with the key for room 507.' I was confused first with what they meant and thought it was in box 507 but no. Apparently you need a code to a box where your key is in. After 30 minutes i found the keycode in the depths of my spam mails. like super hidden which sucked. My key was in a box together with 507. Like why wouldn't you put the code in that last mail. Whatever at least we got in and checked my apartment. When they left my buddy gave me her cheesecake as a gift it was so kind. And then i was struggling finding wifi but it was on the back of the door on a super tiny card. i think i was just pretty dumb the whole time because of stress. I was very blessed meeting with them carrying my luggage all the way to the 4th floor because the elevator doesn't work, and also using their data to find stuff in my mail.

Now that it's morning, I got this beautiful view from my window of the mountains between some concrete flats. In the distance a few colored houses are sitting between the trees in this sunny weather. It's so pretty overhere. I used the sun as alarm to not burn me in my face to get up out of bed. I was so nervous to meet with my roommates. As i dressed up and opened my door to go to the bathroom i heard someone stepping out of it across the hall so i said hi. 'Ohmygod you scared me.' he said before putting his hands on his face and chest to calm down. 'Oh i'm so sorry, imsosorry haha.' Dude it was scary for me too man. 'Sorry you have to see me this way, i'm Martin.' He was just dressed with a shirt and pants looking like he just came from the beach. 'No it's fine it's morning anyways, my name is Lois.' I said. 'Nice to meet you!.' He went back to his room and i noticed there was no toilet paper left, so i decided to go to the grocery store.

Thankgod there's a Lidl because it's always pretty cheap. But not in Switzerland nope. Just for 4 days eating i'm left with 37 CHF which is 40 euros goddamnit. It's as expensive like the Albert Heijn in the Netherlands... *big sigh* stupid Switzerland. but maybe it's not stupid after all for me because i get 460 CHF per month from their government, heheheh, for groceries, data,school stuff and traveling as a student. AND i get 500 from my dutch government because i'm abroad as a student. Crazy privelege i behold and i'm not going to deny that.

I'll be attending the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU). They have multiple buildings for certain majors. I study my Animation major at the Lucerne School of Design, Film and Art, a little outside the downtown area of Lucerne.
I'm not in Switzerland yet because i still need to arrange a lot of stuff. I'm just starting this entry right now already because it's nice to know what's involved for people who maybe want to go here as well or just want to experience an exchange in general.

(I will edit this entry several times so i can cross things off)

The stuff i already had done:
For the school's application:

• portfolio
• motivation letter
• passport info
• resume
• relevant language certificate(s)
• Learning Agreement (agreement from both schools to attend the school from abroad)
• Transcript of Records (grades)

When i was accepted i had to declare consent to declare i will only study there and nowhere else.

Then i had to arrange an accomodation. Thank god the school offers some specific accomodations to students from specific majors. I'll be staying in this certain apartment building where it's recommended for art and music students to stay there.
The important thing is to mail their housing-mail that you want to reserve a room. Else it won't be shown that a room is free in your HSLU-account. Everything seemed full when i looked around for rooms on my account website before mailing them. After you mail them you'll get a message on your account that there will be a room free when you click on the 'accomodation' button. Much later when you booked a room you'll get the rest of the information such as payment.

Making sure you're insured for travel and overall health

The stuff i still need to arrange are:

Residence Permit

bank account information

making sure my country knows i'm studying elsewhere by sending them proof (i need both institutions to sign the paper form)

student grant (SEMP for Switzerland)

travel fee

Residence Permit: I need to hand in the following things for the Migration Office in Lucerne when i come over within 14 days:

Application form 6 (school sends it to me)

Copy of passport: valid for at least 3 months beyond the intended date of departure

Confirmation of Enrolment (will be issued by your Student Services Coordinator or Exchange Program Coordinator)

Copy health Insurance

Evidence of sufficient financial means through current statement of a bank account in your name with the required minimum amount of CHF 21.000 for a whole academic year, CHF 10.500 for one semester

or alternatively:

a declaration of financial guarantee of a solvent person with residence in Switzerland

For EU/EFTA passport holders: submit a letter from your parents confirming that they support you financially during your studies

The ones i crossed out are the things I have already laid out ready.

i send a form to both institutions to sign as proof that my country knows i'll be going abroad.It's at the same time a request for a travel fee. i need to wait now. Update: i arranged it.

For my student grant there will be two workshops for more information about it. The first one will be held when i'm spending time in the US though but it'll be fine. The second one will be held in person somewhere at school.

Okay, i hope these tasks won't stack up even more. i'm praying i'm not forgetting something. But yeah, this is all the stuff that you need to arrange for an exchange which can be pretty tiring, but it's worth the work.

My greatest tip is to KEEP MAILING both education institutions contacts if you have questions. It still happens that things are overlooked. I didn't even know i had to send an entire form to my municipality instead of only marking and answering a few questions on their website. I found out because of the travel insurance subject my advisor told me, but unfortunately she didn't gave me any exact information about how to arrange that. Anyways, we're good now, i hope.

Also another tip is to READ THE FORMS REALLY WELL that you'll get per email by the institution abroad. I need a long time to read, idk why, most of the time 5 times even if it was in my native language. Sometimes i didn't read certain words which made me skip important things.
At the beginning, when i had to do the application form, i didn't read you only had to fill in your personal information first in order to get send to the main application website. After doing the first part i didn't read that it will take at least 3 workdays to get processed, oops. So i was stressed out because i handed it in 2 days before the deadline. I first thought to just wait till i got every document ready and then fill out everything all at once, but nu-uh. i mailed the institutions advisor and she send me right away to the website, thank god she's fast with replying.

Update: i got really confused why this other advisor from HSLU send me a mail WITH the document about visa requirements having name subject name of the mail being VISA and accomodation. I recently discovered don't need a long stay visa. It's called a Residence Permit. she sent me two different documents for both students who don't need visas and do. So i was confused which one i should follow. But now i know.