I spent most of the weekend in bed with allergies. I'm getting desperate, and if the allergies won't go away I'm going to try Claritin. Claritin can be bought over the counter now, and everyone I know says it's great.

I have a second midterm exam for my film history class on Thursday, so I did end up studying on both days. Still it's so not fun to cooped up at home afraid to go out, because being outside makes me sneeze and stuffs up my nose.

The hot weather here is such a drag for my allergies. But I'm not the only one. There are a ton of people at work complaining about their allergies as well.

I hate that I feel like such a loser at work. I think this feeling stems from the fact that I'm contracting, and not a permanent hire. I've got meetings scheduled through the week of April 5, and then if the job doesn't work out I'm gone the next week.

My bosses keep acting like I'll be there forever because I'm schedule to be on a project team that ends May 31. Then my big boss today told me I have to replicate this study that was done in the fall of last year. I can see that study taking at least three weeks to complete. Then there's training I'm supposed to have to use some software tool they bought for $200K. And then we had a meeting today about some work that's supposed to start in July.

I hate that everyone is treating me like I'm a full time employee, when I'm actually not. I was in a meeting on Wednesday when one of my bosses announced that some person on his floor quit after three days. He said it was a mutual decision.

I feel like quitting my every day, but I know I can't because I need income to live. I just feel so overwhelmed 90% of the time. My big boss is tossing my name around in meetings, and volunteering for me to do all these projects.

Remeber that analysis that I made a little mistake on yesterday? I received an email this afternoon saying that the VP I sent it it was forwarding my analysis to another VP for his input and review. And I'm like great ... more people to notice that the titles of the chart aren't quite right.

I found out this morning that another file I sent to the VP last night was missing some information that I thought the IT guy had sent. I should have checked it more thoroughly before I sent it off, but I thought the IT guy was going to just replicate what he had sent me before and that dataset was perfect.

I really need to double check my work and slow down. I feel such pressue to perform and perform well. And I don't perform well under pressure at all, as you've no doubt noticed.

My new job is so tiring. I come home exhausted every night. I have so much to do and so many meetings to attend. It's such a change from my old job, but it's a good change.

The head of my department came over to my cube and said she was very happy with me so far. Her exact words were "it's like night and day between you and the person you're replacing." I hope her opinion doesn't change when it comes time for me to go permanent. I really like my direct boss; she is such a nice person. Everyone is so nice.

I had back to back meetings with these guys I met in a meeting last Thursday. They were helping me with a presentation for the head of my group. These guys were so sweet and nice and so helpful. The head of my group told me that the presentation was successful, and she got what she wanted.

I went to a vendor presentation at a hotel this morning. There were supposed to be nine people there, but only three of us showed up. Me and two guys from PBGH. From their site, "Founded in 1989, The Pacific Business Group on Health (PBGH) is a non-profit coalition of major California employers that is nationally recognized for its efforts to improve the quality and availability of health care while moderating costs. "

These guys were really smart and from what I could gather, big wigs in the California healthcare scene. I felt like such a nobody being at the presentation with them. I didn't say anything the whole time. I'm still too dazed by my new job to feel comfortable. I wish my boss had come with me, but she was in a usability study this morning. She would loved shooting the breeze with these guys.

I sent my first analysis off to a VP this afternoon. My boss keeps telling me that my analysis is for this "high profile" project. I'm definitely working way too fast, and need to be more careful. After I sent the analysis off, I noticed that I had some table headings wrong. It's not a big mistake, but it's still a mistake and it just doesn't look good.

The analysis is sound, but now I feel like I'll get dinged because I messed the titles of my charts up. I'm so mad at myself. I should have just left it to the morning so I could review it again when I was fresh. I had my boss and this other manager review it, but nobody noticed it. It's not their job to notice it I guess, it's mine to make sure it's correct.

I hope the VP I sent it to isn't nitpicker and just doesn't notice it. I wonder what the chance is of that happening? I'll just have to be more careful next time, and not rush myself. It's better to be late in sending things off than to send things off with mistakes right?

A friend got free tickets to see a play that was the hit of the San Francisco Fringe Festival. It was supposed to be an absurdist musical, and the reviews said it was really funny. It wasn't all that amusing and it wasn't that great, but at least we didn't pay for it. The woman who is the owner of the theater was sitting next us, and I'm not even sure if she liked the play because she hardly laughed.

It's probably one of those plays that are good if you see it when the theatre is full, and everyone is a little rowdy and a little drunk. You end up laughing and enjoying it, only because everyone around is going crazy over it and so you get into it so you don't feel left out. It's like theater peer pressure. If everybody else is laughing, it must be funny right?

Then we went to Original Joe's to have some dinner. The food is italian dinner and old fashioned, but for a cheap price they serve you huge portions of food so you always feel like you've got your money's worth by eating there because you have enough for a meal for the next day.

As we were leaving the restaurant and turning on Eddy Street, we see these police cars on full siren driving down the street. Then we saw two cops running down the street. It was like a scene out of "Cops", and automatically I heard the "Cops" theme song in my head. "Bad boys. what you gonna do, what you gonna do when then come for you."

The theater and restaurant are in the bad part of town called the "Tenderloin". It's the red light district with hookers, seedy hotels, drug dealers galore, and assorted junkies and freaks hanging out on the street.

My friend didn't want to walk down Eddy, so we headed down Taylor and the scene there looked dicey as well. Then I suggested we go up a block to avoid the police melee. and she said no because the next street up was even worse because of the drug dealers.

Of course secretly, I wanted to go walk down Eddy Street and watch the cops do their thing because whenever I see cops on the street arresting people it makes me feel like I'm in a movie or in a police crime drama show on TV. I told my friend that the cops running like that made me feel like I was in a movie, and she said it wouldn't be a movie if we got caught in the crossfire of a gun battle.

But Eddy was the only safest street to walk through that night, so we waited to see what the police would do. There were four cop cars lined up on the left side of the street with their lights flashing, and the two cops whom we saw running down the street, were now returning in the direction they had come from.

So we cautiously proceeded down the street trying to be hyper alert for gun sightings and or gun shots. When we passed the two cops, I heard one of them say it was a code 4.

I was wondering if code 4 was MDK, or murder-death-kill, and then I annoyed my friend because I started chanting murder-death-kill, murder-death-kill. Then we saw two different cops running up the street, but by then we were a block away from Union Square and anxious to get home.

It's so weird to get back to the cable car turnaround at Union Square thinking there might a possible police shootout two to three blocks away. My friend talked about tourists getting lost and ending up in the Tenderloin. Will they feel like they're in an episode of "Cops", or maybe a movie or a police crime drama tv show?