QUEST EXPO 2019
CATCH ME BACKSTAGE
TEACHER RETENTION
NUEVA SPORTS
If you missed the event or want a recap of some of the projects, check out this collection of standout Quest projects.
Nueva’s spring musical production of "Catch Me If You Can" ran May 10-12, and the backstage action was just as wild as the onstage drama. p. 5
High teacher turnover rates make it hard for a community to form and student-teacher relationships to develop. Read one writer’s opinion on this issue. p. 15
Here’s our Year in Review of Nueva’s athletics. We looked back on the team rituals, hype songs, and favorite memories.
The Nueva Current
Volume 2, Issue 6
PHOTO BY JORDAN M.
p. 3
JUNE 6, 2019
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131 E. 28th Ave. San Mateo, CA 94403 @thenuevacurrent www.thenuevacurrent.com The Official Student Newspaper of The Nueva School
FEATURES
Welcome to B Street Books
As the independent bookstore celebrates 11 years in San Mateo, the value of locality comes into the spotlight Willow C. Y.
From his perch on a black swivel chair, Lew Cohen greets everyone who walks into downtown San Mateo’s B Street Books. “Hi, hello,” he says. “Are you looking for anything in particular? Well, if you need help, just yell at me.” It was May and a brightly-colored bunting banner advertised the store’s 10th anniversary while another promoted a store-wide sale. For the past decade, Cohen has been the owner and manager of local and antiquarian bookstore B Street Books, buying and selling to and from the community, from squealing children and their eye-bagged parents to a teen just out of school to the quiet seniors. The store is a source for collectors with its circa 1910, 30-volume works of Charles Dickens and complete set of Arthur Conan Doyle; a quiet haven for readers with its huge windows and numerous armchairs; and, as it were, one of the last local bookstores in downtown San Mateo. ——— For 35 years pre–B Street, Cohen was a private investigator dealing with civil litigation, before realizing that he wanted to do something different. “The job was always around the negative aspect of life,” Cohen explained. “It was the just seedy side,
PHOTO BY WILLOW C. Y.
and I was tired of chasing after bad guys.” He and an old college roommate from Sacramento State, seeing an opening after the last local bookstore in the area closed in 1994, decided to open an antiquarian bookstore and named it B Street Books. After a few
months of renting space in a cavernous Thrifty, they moved to the current location, a red-awninged, tiled building dating back to 1912 which, Cohen revealed, features an old Bank of America vault that is “still under your feet.” B Street has since occupied the corner store and its vault and has filled
it floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-window with books. It attracts both new customers and B Street old-timers who return, sometimes several times a week, to peruse the worn wood shelves and curl into red leather armchairs. CONTINUED ON PAGE 9
Unfollow and unplug Why some Gen Z’ers are tired of social media (but can’t stop using it) Gitika P.
At the end of tenth grade, I had a nervous breakdown. Personal and academic stressors—ones many of us experience—suddenly felt impossible to cope with together. So I cut my hair, asked my family for support, and deleted Instagram off my phone. Two weeks later, my bob cut and daily wellness check-ins remained, but that pesky little app had found its way back to my
ILLUSTRATION BY ANNIE Z.
home screen. Nothing about scrolling through an endless feed of summer beach pictures was particularly fascinating to me. Even worse, I knew that doing so would undermine or slow any progress I had made with my mental health. So why did I keep doing it? CONTINUED ON PAGE 10