Welcome to the fish bowl

Today was our first day in the fish bowl! Now let me explain what the fish bowl is... it's a class room that no other class really wants. The following description may give you an idea as to why it is the least desired classroom in the entire school.
Our school is located on the 2nd floor of a building just a couple of streets away from the downtown east side (actually, I think we're still technically part of the downtown east side). Though the various characters that walk/stumble around are harmless, they still grace us with their presence. The 2nd floor is also where other facilities are located. Like the physiotherapy place, the optometrist, a day care and a place that assists immigrants who are new to Vancouver to help then with... well what ever they may need. Needless to say, the folk that walk our corridors can be very interesting.
The fish bowl is a relatively small classroom with floor to ceiling windows that face into the main hallway of the 2nd floor. This means that ANYONE can walk off the street and look right into our classroom. For someone like me, who has the attention span of a gnat, this can be particularly distracting. I am practicing my focus though! In yoga, they tell you to let thoughts/emotions come up, acknowledge them and then let them go. I've adopted this with the folk that walk by.
It's interesting though... some will stand at the window and watch us, like they're in a zoo and we're some strange, foreign animals. Others will stand there and read what the teacher is lecturing about. One weird dude kept walking by and winking at the girls. He'd smile and walk by and then he just gave up on being sneaky and stood there, while talking on his cell, staring at us and winking or smiling occasionally. Creepy! Anyways so we've adopted a buddy system when we have to leave class and weird stalker like people hang outside our classroom.
All in all though, I quite like the fish bowl. Our group has such an energy that we totally rock it! We even bought little fishy decals to stick on the window so it looks like we're on the inside of the fish bowl! :)