Kacina and the terrible horrible no good very bad day

I received a text from Tim, my principal, telling me "don't panic...your classroom flooded." So of course my first reaction was to panic. He told me there was "minor damage, maybe a few books." How in the world does a classroom flood? I kept retracing my steps and asking myself if I closed all my windows. Apparently I wasn't thinking logically because there is no way my windows being open in my classroom would flood the entire room unless there was a tsunami (not likely in Indianapolis, IN) that happened to pass by. I tried to put the whole thing out of my mind until the next day when I could go in and assess the "minor damage" myself.
I got up early the next day and went into my room to find no "minor damage" but HUGE DAMAGE!! Obviously Tim doesn't understand how essential my English/Spanish area rug is to my day. Somewhere in my mind, between real facts and dramatizations of my imagination, I believe I read a study that shows that when students have been sitting for 17 minutes, their minds shut off. So this year I have been doing a very good job of utilizing all of the space in my class. I have a book center with a very large area rug (that I fought very hard to get, and eventually had to steal). This is one of the most important places in my room because I hold Writer's Workshop and sometimes other things in this area. It's such a calming place and my students seem at peace there--weird, I know. But it's one of the only areas that they are quiet when they sit there. So...like I said HUGE DAMAGE!
At this point I really didn't care that my books for my class that starts in December were completely ruined because they were sitting on the floor behind my desk. Yeah, that didn't phase me like my area rug did.
I talked to our head custodian, Ed, and he did tell me that he was able to save it and was drying it. So hopefully it comes back to me in tip top shape because it means everything to me!
But that's not all. Also when I walked in that morning, I saw that the Front Row people came in and installed our new microphone technology. I fully admit that I was not very pumped about this. When I was told that I was one of eight classrooms chosen to pilot Front Row systems, and that I would have to wear a microphone...I may have made a few jokes about it with my other friends who also had to wear one. So this was not a good day to see my brand new microphone sitting at the front of the class waiting for me to put it on. I couldn't possible have to test this out on the same day I thought I lost my area rug.
I clipped it on and started talking to my students and they were so silent. So I continued through writing, then reading...soon enough we were through our whole day. They all said they liked the microphone and it helped them pay attention better. It is really awesome! There are speakers all around the room so all students can hear equally. It was really nice when I was writing on the Activboard, I could still talk and they could all hear me perfectly. It even comes with a hand held mic for the students to use. We did some reading out loud and everyone wanted to use the microphone to read! It was amazing. Students who normally don't like to read, wanted to use it and try. I was really skeptical of this system, but I swear by it now!! I think these things should be in every classroom. It even runs through my computer so when we are watching our Social Studies and Science videos on the Activboard, we don't have to strain to hear them! Check it out here!