Government Ms. Cheng
3/4/07 Cui Ying Wu
In the Constitution of the United States, there is a system called “checks and balance”, it helps to separate and balance the power of three branches including executive branch, legislative branch and judicial branch in government. Even though the purpose of “checks and balances” is giving equal power to each branch to check others, this system does not work well because the Judaic branch has less power than other two.

During the Enlightenment, one of the famous philosophers named Monrosquieu brought up the idea which was the separation of power about government , it means that the government should divide into different groups, each group has some special power. He also though of the system of “checks and balances”, each group has the power to oversee other groups in order to balance the power and prevent one group has too much power. According to these ideas of Monrosquieu, the constitution of the United States sets up three branches which are executive, legislative and judicial branches, each branch has some special powers to check other two branches. “ checks and balances” is very important to dominate the country and make the decision of government fairly. However, comparing the executive branch and legislative branch, the juiced branch has less and narrower power.

The president of the United States charges the executive branch, the legislative branch is charged by the congress and the juices branch is charged by the Supreme Court. In order to set up laws of the United States, three branches have different duties, the legislative branch makes the laws, the judicial branch interprets laws and the executive branch enforces the laws. For making laws, it seems their powers are equal. However, the executive branch has more power than judicial branch. The president has power to grant pardons an paroles, it means that even the Supreme Court has already put some persons who are guilty into jail, the president can free those prisons in special situations. The president appoints the federal judges of the Supreme Court. Contrary, the Supreme Court only has power to decide if actions of the president are constitutional, explains which negotiated by the president.

The legislative branch also has more power than judicial branch. By checking the Supreme Court, the congress has power to propose amendments to overturn court decisions, in spite of the Supreme Court has announced results of some cases, the congress still has power to override them. The Supreme Court only has power to decide if a law which made by the congress is constitutional; its power is limited in law area. The congress also has power to establish lower courts; these lower courts charged most of cases in the country. If the officials in the Supreme Court are not responsible, the congress can impeach and remove them, it makes big influence on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court does not work in most events of the country.
From the explanations above, we can see obviously that the power of the judicial branch has more limitations than executive branch and legislative branch. Both of two branches check the judicial branch by many ways, but the judicial branch just can check if their actions or laws are constitutional. So the “checks and balances” system does not work well, the judicial branch has less power to check other two branches.

Cui Ying Wu Ms. Yang
3/3/07 Fundamentals of Writing
The history of my English name
When you know a person, you must know his or her name. Name is the symbol of a person in school, community and country, it accompanies that person a whole life. So people will not ignore their names. Name is very important to everyone, some people also believe good name can give people good life. Even though most of people named by other people when they born, many of them would like to choose another name by themselves, search different names and choose one can bring them benefits.

Since I was a child, I thought my Chinese name sounded very strange. Therefore, I always wish I can choose a name I liked for myself. In China, just a few people change their names and it is so complicated. Even though I want to change my name, I think it was too difficult for me to do it, furthermore my family and friends already get used to it. However, after I cam to America, I made friends with some Americans. They asked me if I had an English name. I thought of “When in Rome, do as Romans do”, I also thought that it was time for me to choose a name I liked. So I decide to pick an English name I really like by myself.

I searched thousands of English names for female in many different ways. I pay attention to English names wherever I saw and whenever I heard. I also looked up some dictionaries and books to find an English name which was simple and sounded nice. Unfortunately, I had searched for a long time, I still could not find one satisfied me. I felt a little depressed about it. One Sunday morning, I watched a Cartoon show with my cousin at home. Suddenly, I heard a special English name that I never heard before. There was a girl who owned a symmetry factory; everything in the factory was symmetry. Her name sounded very nice and it was easy to spell “A-V-A”. One the show, it said that the writing of this name was also symmetry. I think it is so meaningful to me, in my mind, it is such an special and lucky name.

I get many benefits from my English name. After most of my friends and teachers know my English name, they call it easily and comfortably, this is good for our communication. Especially, my history teacher, before she knew my English name, she just could remember my face, it was too hard for her to pronounce my Chinese name. Even though I told her thousands of times, she still forgot absolutely. Now she can call me whenever she wanted. Our relationship between teacher and student is better that before, I feel we are closer to each other. Furthermore, when I learned how to pronounce “v”, most of the time I did not pronounce it correctly. After I got this English name, I can listen the correct pronunciation of my English name when people called me, and when I tell people my English name, I also can practice to pronounce “v”. Therefore, I can pronounce it correctly now.

I like my English name very much. When I talk about it, I always have lots of interesting things to say. It seems as my good friend, we know each other very well because I chose it by myself and searched it for a long time; I also got many benefits from it. To me, it is my helpful partner. I will not change my English name no matter what happen in the future.

Contact Information (yours):
Cui Ying Wu
4011 9Ave Brooklyn
New York, NY 11232
718-8515-179
Email@Address.com

Contact Information (theirs):
Name of Employer
Position Title
Company
Address
City, State Zip Code

March 27,2006

Dear Mr. Smith:

I am writing to apply for the position of Summer Intern that was advertised on the Big Money Records website. I am interested in the job you are offering. I would like the opportunity to know more about how to make CDs. This job also makes me excited. This is a very nice job for me.

I am in LESP High School, where I have maintained a grade point average of 94, and I participate in a wide range of extracurricular activities relating to the position you are offering. I like to listen to music with CD players and I like CDs very much, and I could listen to music or songs wherever I want. So I very wonder how CDs were made. In my school in China, I joined the volleyball team of my class and had competition with other classes, and my team won the first Place, I was very happy and enjoyed the team work very much. In addition, my participation as a mentee in the iMenter program has required me to exchange structured emails with my mentor every week for the past school year, which has helped me to improve my writing and computer technology skills. Finally, my experience as a volunteer for Asia American for Equality had given me a strong sense of responsibility, I think this will help me to do better in the position you are offering.

I would appreciate the opportunity to meet you to discuss my qualifications in person. I will try my best to do it if you employ me. Please feel free to contact me at your convenience, using the contact information listed above.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Cui Ying

Wu, Cui Ying Creative Writing
In this semester, I take the after class called creative writing, when I hear its name, I think this class is about writing and I really want to improve my writing skills. I feel very grad to join this class. It is fun and relax. I also get some new experiences from it, it is meaningful to me.
At the first of this class, teacher told us that we were going to make a literary magazine and the topic was about four seasons. After I heard that, I thought it was very hard to make magazine because I never did that before. At the beginning, we read some famous poems together, then we wrote the poems by ourselves. I learn how to write poems from reading those poems. It was my first time to write poems, I thought it was hard. However, I enjoyed it very much, even though my poems were not good. After we finished our poems, everybody had to read their own poem to the class. I felt little embarrassing to read my poems. Gradually, I was not afraid of it and felt comfortable to read. Actually, there are lots of first time in this class, almost things are fresh to me. We also made posts about four seasons and asked more people to join us. We put posts on the walls to show our work. After we finish writing poems, we were separated into several groups and went out to take pictures about seasons. We chose some pictures could present four seasons, most of pictures were good, it was hard to choose, eventually we chose some special pictures. Then, we would get together to discuss how to organize the magazine, we had to decide the order of the poems and pictures. This part was simple, but it was not easy to do. The next step was to choose poems, my group charged this part, if one people chose a poem, we had to discuss weather it was good or not. I think it was difficult to choose because every poem had its emotion, we must think about which one is best and make a decision. The teacher asked us to print out poems and pictures and made the model magazine. I felt very excited to see it, we made it with all classmates and did lots of works, it was very cute and wonderful. This is our first time to make magazine, it is amazing that we finished it. It contains all of our efforts, I can’t wait to see the real magazine.
From this class, I am proud of making the literary magazine with all my classmates under teacher’s direction. I not only get some new experiences from it , but also felt deeply the power of teamwork. If we don’t have teamwork, the magazine will not born.

History of CUNY


I hear lots of students in my school talk about CUNY, but they never mentioned the history of it. I really want to know about how the CUNY formed. The City University of New York( CUNY) is “the public university system of New York City and largest urban university in the United State(“City”)”.

CUNY was organized in 1961(Berrol 234; Gold 332). However, Townsend Harris had formed the Free Academy in 1847, the Free Academy helped to extend the benefits of education gratuitously to students who “in the common schools of the city and country of New York”(“City”). It is the foundation of CUNY.

City College is the first component of CUNY, it is on St. Nicholas Heights, centered on Convent Ave and 138th St (Cooper 330). At the begin of CUNY, there were four schools, City College, Hunter College, Brooklyn College, Queens College (Berrol 234).

The City University of New York is a great university system, it gave thousands of students help, so they can have more opportunities to go college and continuous their study. Even thought the history of CUNY is short, it had made a big influence in the education of New York.

Bibliography

Berrol, S. (1995). City University of New York. In. The Encyclopedia of New York City.
(p.234). Yale University.

City University of New York. (n.d.). Retrieved October 19,2006, from Wikipedia, Inc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUNY

Cooper, P. (2005). City College. In. The Encyclopedia of New York State. (p.330).
Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press.

Gold, K. M. (2005) City University of New York. In. The Encyclopedia of New York
State. (p.332). New York: Syracuse University Press Syracuse.

The Graduate Center (2006). I Ask.com. Retrieved October 5, 2006, from Ask.com, Inc.
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/about_gc/directions.htm

Research Project #1:Problem by CuiYingWu
Teen Pregnancy (1st draft) 1/19/07
Teen pregnancy has become a serious issue in the United States. Each year, almost one million teenage women get pregnancy (“Adolesent”). By the age of 19, 66% of teens are sexually active (“Adolesent”). About 31% of teen girls get pregnant at least one before reaching the age 20 (“Teen”). In order to avoid future problems of teen pregnancy, both parents and teenagers have responsibilities to prevent teen pregnancy.

Pregnancy is “ the state of carrying a developing embryo or fetus within the female body (“General”)”. Teenagers refers to the people whose age is between thirteen and nineteen. In United States,2000, the number of teen pregnancies by age from fifteen to seventeen is 281,900; the number of teen pregnancies by age from eighteen to nineteen is 539,910 (“Number”). From these data, we know that pregnancy had become a common thing in the teenagers, people have to pay more attention on this problem and teenagers.

After knowing the large number of teen pregnancies, most of people, especially parents must want to know that what are the causes of this problem. One of the causes is about socio-economic. In some poor areas, they build up a disadvantage community (“What”), such as poor villages, complicated towns. There are different kinds of people who live in these areas, many of them have different ideas and misbehaviors. Teenagers who live it that area, they will see some people misbehaviors in sexual activities and learn from them. So teen girls can get pregnant after they do sex with males. Teens who live in the single parent family, they get less care from their parents, they will go outside to meet more people and do what they want, mostly teen girls meet other males and do sex, they have more chances to get pregnant(“What”).

Family relationship is very important to the cause of teen pregnancy. If the relationship between parents and teenagers gets worst, some of teenagers want to spend more time with somebody they liked and talk with them. These teenagers also not talk to their parents about themselves, so parents do not know what they do and what happens to them. Teen girls who has boyfriends probably like to stay with their boyfriends and do sex, that will make them pregnant (“What”).

Another cause of teen pregnancy is lock of knowledge about sex. “Teenagers who live in dysfunctional family (“Teen”)”, parents would not have ideas and time to give them sexual information because most of their parents are low educated and have to work for long time to make money for living. These parents do not spend lots of time on their children and try to know about them, or talk with them about sex and give them correct sexual information.
At school, “education about responsible sexual behavior are not frequently offered (“Adolescent”)”. School is the place teens stay in long time, teens get most of their knowledge from school education. However, school do not give teenagers enough sexual class, so students can not get as much as sexual information they need.

Sexual activities are the primarily cause of teen pregnancy. “All teenage pregnancies are the result of sexual activity, whether voluntary or involuntary (“Causes”)”. Some of teen girls get pregnant take park in loving relationship for a long time because girls must do some sexual activities with her lover if they together for a long time. Some teenager girls get pregnant after they raped. (“Causes”) Rape is somebody force teen girls to have sex with them using violence. Even thought these girls are not willing to do sex , they probably get pregnancy after raped.

Teen pregnancy had caused many effects both on teen mothers and children of teens. Low graduated rates of pregnancy teens in high school and college (“Teen”). “Only one-third receive a school diploma and 1.5% have a college degree by age 30 (“General”). Pregnancy teens have to spend time to go to the doctor and check their bodies, most of time in class they can not concentrate themselves. They also have some other problems about their baby to solve. So in pregnancy teens’ eyes, study became less important to them. pregnancy teens have serious health risks (“Teen”). Common medical problems among teens mothers include “poor weight gain, hypertension, anemia, sexually transmitted diseases and cephalopelvic disproportion (“Teen”).

Children of teens are effected a lot by teen pregnancy. Children of teens often have poorer parenting or single parenting (“Teen”). Their parents are too young to be a parent, when they have baby, they don’t have idea how to raise the baby and how to educate them because they do not have that kind of knowledge and their mind are not mature. Some of them even can not take care of themselves, how can they raise the baby. So children of teens most can not get good care and family education from their parents. There are also some healthy problems in children of teens. They “suffer from higher rates of low birth weigh and related health problems (“Teen”). “Low birth weight raises the probabilities of infant death, blindness, deafness, chronic respiratory problems, mental retardation, mental illness an cerebral palsy (“Teen”).

Teen pregnancy also causes some economic problems. It will make the family poorer(“Teen”). Teen mothers can not make enough money to raise the baby even she has a job, so the family have to take some money to help the teen mother raise the baby. To raise a baby is not easy, it must be considered lots, many of them involve money. “Teen pregnancy costs society billions of dollars a year(“Teen”). Most of teen mothers are unmarried , many of them will end up poor and on welfare. “Each year the federal government alone spends about 9 billion dollars to help families that began with a teenage birth (“Teen”).

Even though teen pregnancy has become a such bad problem, there still some solutions to prevent it. Both parents of teens and teenagers have responsibilities to reduce the number of teen pregnancies. Teenagers should wait until they are older to have sex (“General”). If they are older enough and have ability to raise a baby, so they can avoid some healthy and economic problems. They should talk to someone they trust when they have sexual problems (“Especially”). Before they do sexual activities, they ask someone they trust for some correct sexual information, so they probably can prevent pregnancy.

Parents of teens also can help to prevent teen pregnancy, they should talk to their children about sex and give them correct sexual information (“General”). They are the closest people to their children, if they can give children some sexual class and tell them something about sex, it will help children to know what they should do and what they should not do about sex.

We can not ignore the problem of teen pregnancy because it already made lots of negative influences on teenagers and society, it causes low graduated rates, healthy problems of teen mothers and children of teens, government spend billions dollars on it. Do you support teen pregnancy? If not, we should try our best to prevent it , parents of teens and teenagers are the most useful helpers to solve this problem and make teenagers growing up more healthily.

中文功课critical lens

“作家都是通过黑暗让读者看到光明”这句话的意思就是：在文学作品中，作家通常借助对人性的丑恶，社会腐败的揭露和批判而让读者意识到人们需要真，善，美去创造美好的社会。我认为这句话的观点是正确的通过对狄更斯的《双城记》和巴尔扎克的《高老头》这两部小说的分析。

在狄更斯的小说《双城记》中，他描述了主人公马奈特医生为了要告发侯爵兄弟的恶行而被无辜地关进监狱。作者通过对侯爵兄弟的丑陋性格的描写表达了这是社会腐败的重要因素。侯爵兄弟都是为所欲为，不择手段地去达到自己目的的人。他们俩看上了一位美丽的少妇，为了得到她，他们利用卑鄙的手段把她的丈夫折磨死了。他们不但对少妇进行玩弄，还把她的弟弟杀了。他们的所作所为毫无人性，非常的冷酷无情。后来，马奈特医生知道了他们的滔天罪行而要去告发他们，不幸的是马奈特医生没有逃出他们的魔掌，反而被他们关进监狱。这两兄弟简直像魔鬼一样，死性不改，一错再错地去破坏别人平静的生活，糟蹋人命。读者看到后，就会对这种丑陋的人性感到愤怒和不安，从而更加期盼公平安定的社会的到来，追求更完美的人性。


在小说《高老头》中，巴尔扎克描述了主人公高老头为了自己的两个女儿而倾家荡产，但他的两个女儿却为了追逐巴黎的上流社会而抛弃年老的父亲。这部小说的主题是关于金钱可以收买人心，在追求金钱的人的心目中，亲情是微不足道的。在小说中，高老头的两个女儿三番四次地找高老头拿钱去买首饰，衣服，去参加上流社会的派对，她们从来不关心父亲，只有在需要钱的时候才去见孤独伶仃的父亲，向他要钱。可邻的高老头在临终的时候，非常渴望见他俩个女儿一面，可是她们把他置之不理，谁也不愿意去见父亲最后一面，更离谱的是她们在参加上流社会的派对。从这里我们可以看出在她们心目中，亲情根本不算什么，钱才是最重要的。这必定会引起读者的反感与愤怒。他们会对这种现象进行批评，不能忍受这种违背道德的行为和思想，从而领悟到人的生活需要真善美。


从狄更斯的《双城记》和巴尔扎克的《高老头》的小说中，我们可以看到作家为了读者对真，善，美的追求从而创造美好的，平等的社会而在文学作品中揭露和批评人性的丑恶和社会的腐败。