So as the shipping deadline comes and goes, and I have resigned myself to the fate of getting rematched, what should happen but to be informed that not only is my arbitrary day gifter alive and kicking, but that he has shipped his gift to me and that it was already in an airplane headed for my home! That was two days ago. And today, this morning, while sanding a table in the front yard, I have delivered to me by way of a kindly UPS deliveryman a perfect and all-around fantastic box of goodies!

My anonymous gifter had selected for me three fucking awesome books to occupy the time between having packed up all the rest of my books and when I move out of state in two weeks. I had mistakenly left none unboxed for me to read until then, so this is absolutely perfect.

1) The Rebel by Albert Camus. One of my favorite authors. This is a collection of essays concerning rebellion, conscience, and humanity. I am a big fan, personally, of Camus's humanistic existentialism best outlined in The Plague. But what's great about him is that no two works of his are the same. From the dark and brisk The Stranger, to the rambling monologue of The Fall, to his short stories that range from Conradesque to Kafkaesue. And this will be my first foray into his essay work.

2) Speaking of Kafkaesque- The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka. Another of my favorite authors. I have read all of his novels (although all three are horrifically unfinished), but have yet to delve into his short fiction (of which he's written a ton, as it seems). I love the story of Kafka, I love his style, his humor, and the way that his uniqueness has spawned its own adjective. This edition is just gorgeous- cut pages, a matte finish, a very, very cool cover. It's also crammed with close to 100 stories, ranging from novella to just a paragraph in length. I am very excited about this one.

3) Language and Problems of Knowledge by Noam Chomsky. This one I'm excited about because of the fact that I'm about to begin my PhD in Linguistics. Before Chom-Chom was a bitter anarcho-communist, he was THE linguist. He has paved the way for how we think about Grammar (descriptive grammar, not grammar-nazi grammar), and even though a lot of linguists criticize his current work with Minimalism, he's done a lot to and for the field of syntax (which I am personally most interested in). I haven't had the opportunity to read much of his work so I am very excited for this book, which contains some of his work on aspects of generative grammar and includes Q&A discussion from his lectures. This'll get me back into the studying mood for the fall, which i seriously need to do or else I will be woefully unprepared for the upcoming semester.

So, in short, my gifter has done a wonderful job and I in no way hold it against him that he shipped late. I don't think I could have personally asked for a better set of books. This has been a wonderful conclusion to my participation in a great Arbitrary Day exchange.

Thank you, some guy. You fucking rock.