大学英语周记范文30篇

Passage 4
Seasonal Affective Disorder
Some people feel sad or depressed during the winter months in northern areas of the world. They may have trouble eating or sleeping. They suffer from a condition known as Seasonal Affective Disorder, or S-A-D.
Victims of S-A-D suffer its effects during the short, dark days of winter. The problems are most severe in the months when there are fewer hours of daylight. When spring arrives, these signs disappear and S-A-D victims feel well again.
The National Mental Health Association reports that S-A-D can affect anyone. The group says young people and women are at the highest risk for the disorder. It says that an estimated 25 percent of the American population suffers from some form of S-A-D. About 5 percent suffer from a severe form of the disorder. Many people in other parts of the world also have the condition.
The idea of health problems linked to a lack of light is not new. Scientists have discussed the issue since the beginning of medicine. More than two-thousand years ago, the Greek doctor Hippocrates noted that the seasons affect human emotions.
Today, experts do not fully understand S-A-D, and yet they agree that it is a very real disorder.
To treat the disorder, victims of S-A-D do not need to wait until spring. Experts know that placing affected individuals in bright light each day eases the condition. There are other things people can do to ease the problem. They can increase the sunlight in their homes and workplaces and spend more time outdoors in the fresh air during the day.
One study found that walking for an hour in winter sunlight was as effective as spending two-and-one-half hours under bright light indoors.

Passage 5
Success Is a Choice
All of us ought to be able to brace ourselves for the predictable challenges and setbacks that crop up everyday. If we expect that life won’t be perfect, we’ll be able to avoid that impulse to quit. But even if you are strong enough to persist the obstacle course of life and work, sometimes you will encounter an adverse event that will completely knock you on your back.
Whether it’s a financial loss, the loss of respect of your peers or loved ones, or some other traumatic events in your life, these major setbacks leave you doubting yourself and wondering if things can ever change for the better again.
Adversity happens to all of us, and it happens all the time. Some form of major adversity is either going to be there or it’s lying in wait just around the corner. To ignore adversity is to succumb to the ultimate self delusion.
But you must recognize that history is full of examples of men and women who achieved greatness despite facing hurdles so steep that easily could have crashed their spirit and left them lying in the dust. Moses was a stutterer, yet he was called on to be the voice of God. Abraham Lincoln overcame all difficulties during the Civil War to become our arguable greatest president ever. Helen Keller made an impact on the world despite being deaf, dumb, and blind from an early age. Franklin Roosevelt had polio.
There are endless examples. These were people who not only looked adversity in the face but learned valuable lessons about overcoming difficult circumstances and were able to move ahead.

Passage 6
Is Television a Blessing or a Curse?
It is universally accepted that television is playing an important part in people’s lives. But, there is an ongoing heated discussion as to whether television is a blessing or a curse.
Television keeps one better informed about current affairs, allows one to follow the latest developments in politics and science, and offers a great variety of programs which are both instructive and stimulating. The most distant countries, the strangest customs and the most attractive scenes of nature are brought right into one’s room or household.
However, some people insist that television is a curse rather than a blessing. They argue that it has brought about many serious problems. The major one is its effects on young people. Children are now so used to getting their information and entertainment from television that their literacy as well as physical ability has been greatly weakened. Even worse than that, vulgar commercials and indecent programs may cultivate their bad tastes, distort their view-points towards human life to such a degree that their minds might be corrupted.
To sum up, television has both advantages and disadvantages. What ever effects it has, one point is certain, television in itself is neither good nor bad. It is the use to which it is put that determines its value to society.