Punxsutawney Phil crawled out of his groundhog burrow in Pennsylvania on Monday morning and saw his shadow. Maybe he should have just stayed in there and saved us the disappointment.

You would think we would’ve learned not to get our hopes up by now. Since 1887, America’s favorite groundhog has seen his shadow 97 times. In stark contrast, there have only been 15 times that he hasn’t seen it. Still, just two years ago in 2007, Phil saw no shadow. Was it really so wrong for us to hope for a repeat this year?

If we’re going to have to make it through six more weeks of this Midwestern winter, we’d better figure out how to make it through ‘til spring. As college students, most of us have roommates. It’s in everyone’s best interest to avoid the winter crazies — we saw what happened in The Shining.

First things first: If you’re sick, please stay home. You won’t learn anything if all you can concentrate on is your throbbing headache, and your classmates don’t want to catch what you have.

When you’re going to class, be smart. At the risk of sounding like our mothers, we advise everyone to bundle up. It will be worth it when you’re not shivering your way across central campus.

On a similar note, make sure you’re eating healthy and getting rest. Immune systems are under attack this time of year — we all need to fortify our lines of defense.

If you really can’t take the cold weather, there are other options. You could transfer to a school in a warmer climate — the University of Florida is looking pretty nice right now. But there’s no need to switch allegiances. Why not try the National Student

Exchange and spend a semester in Hawaii?

Or, if you’re getting really desperate, you could just drop out and move somewhere tropical. But we don’t advise that.

On the bright side, there’s a projected high of 35 degrees today — that’s above freezing!