Lots of Awesome Courses, Not Enough Slots

I have an hour or so before my city tour so I thought I'd get a quick update in.
First off, I forgot to mention in my London blog that when I was at Parliament I rubbed Churchill's polished foot.

Today:
I ventured out to Selly Oak once again, which isn't that bad a walk especially now that I have music to listen to. I finally met my tutor, John Warrick who is from Seattle and will be assisting the California Exchange students (CalEx studnets we're called...hm...). I must've been the first one in 'cause he asked me if I had met any of the other California theatre students and it didn't seem like he had met any of them yet.
So I asked him about what classes I'm supposed to choose and he knew about as much as me. He's a brand new member of staff and it's quite evident from the looks of his office; he's still got shelves to fill with books and stuff. He was still pretty helpful, though. A very chill guy who kinda reminds me of Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
I had a list of my preferences with me. He got a photocopy and said he would try to get my top choices. We then talked a bit about UCSB and theatre and Tony Kushner and he said that we'll be studying Angels in America in his class and that he'd expect me to contribute a lot since many here haven't read it.
So Stacy, send me the Dramaturg notes ASAP! ;)
He got back to me relatively quickly.
So here's how it works:
California exchange students take 3 core courses: Theatre and Cultural Politics, Theatre Praxis: Texts in Rehearsal, and Theatre Lab.
We then get to choose 1 study option and 2 practical options.
For my study option I chose Melodrama: we'll be exploring it as a performance genre across the media of theatre, film, and television and consider the ideological and social meanings of melodrama.
For my practical options I chose Monologues and Solo Form, which is a workshop where we'll explore the performative challenges and techniques of monologues and solo performances, and an Alexander Technique class which offers improvement in vocal and movement skills and how to address problems of performance. Both however are being offered in the spring and it's recommended that I spread out my practical courses. So for the Spring I'm signed up for Monologues and Solo Form and for the fall I got one of my next choices, Acting: Performative Strategies which will put an emphasis on theatricality rather than naturalism and we'll study Beckett among others.
I'm really bummed I can't take both Monologues and Alexander Technique and I now find myself torn between the two. But if I were in the Alexander class I would just want to be in the other one. In the monologue class I think I could acquire some vital skills for auditioning and I'm sure I'll take an Alexander Technique class somewhere down the road. That's what I'm telling myself. It's taught in all major drama schools.
Okay I'm gonna stop reassuring myself that I made the right decision.

All in all, my meeting with John was so great! Once we were done discussing my class choices he asked me, 'So would you like to be involved in any productions this year?'
I had to restrain myself from shouting the word 'YES!'
There are apparently a bunch of drama clubs who are going to pitch themselves to us at a meeting in a pub sometime soon.
So that's exciting. He mentioned that this department is almost entirely female-run (the fresher ratio being 72 girls to 4 males) and he assured me that I'd be going back to Santa Barbara with a good load of knowledge about what it is to be a woman in the theatre as well as a good bundle of monologues.

I'm really optimistic about all this now. I was dreading for a while that I'd be stuck with all theory-based courses like I had in SB.

That's all for now. I'm off to a city tour of Birmingham.
Cheers!