EVANSTON — Weinberg Senior Thomas Simonides has expressed hope that the Trilateral Commission, a non-governmental organization on which his 12-page History of U.S. Foreign Relations term paper will be based, is even remotely interesting to either research or write about.

Simonides, who had never heard of the Trilateral Commission before last night, scrambled to pick a topic before his proposal was due this morning. Having put literally zero thought into the topic on which he will spend upwards of 50 hours researching and writing about later this quarter, Simonides based his decision on both the fact that the Trilateral Commission appeared in the indexes of two of his class texts, thus requiring less outside research, and that some of the names on the Commission’s Wikipedia page looked familiar and important.

“David Rockefeller AND Jimmy Carter?!? On the same page? Paydirt!” the chronic procrastinator exclaimed. “Noam Chomsky too? This paper is practically going to write itself!”

His cursory research completed, Simonides wrote his 200-word proposal in a matter of minutes, and rewarded himself for his diligent efforts with four hours of Netflix and video games.

Shortly before retiring to bed for the evening, Simonides was furious to discover that the professor had assigned a short reading assignment for the next class in addition to the single-paragraph project proposal.

“Who the hell does this professor think he is?” Simonides demanded of his roommate. “He makes us do research all weekend AND assigns us reading? What an asshole! I have other responsibilities, you know!”

Simonides promptly ignored his other responsibilities. As of press time, Simonides has apologized profusely to his Reading and Writing Fiction professor, explaining that a “major research assignment” left him unable to complete that weekend’s homework.