Hey there! I’m June. Despite being a senior, I still don’t have any idea what I’m doing so I thought I might just give a short snippet of my life story here. 

I actually grew up in a town called Itasca which is close to Schaumburg. My childhood consisted of a lot of bike riding, cops and robbers (at night and on bikes for an extra thrill), and park district sports. It was there that I found my passion for the outdoors and being active became a pastime. My dad often took us on 14 mile bike rides in the local Forest Preserve. I grew up at the Lego Store and Build-a-Bear at Woodfield Mall (which is the mall you might have seen on Twitter recently where some guy drove an SUV through it).

After the second grade my parents wanted to move to downtown Chicago search of some sort of better education. Living in Chicago was my first chance to meet a lot of kids from different backgrounds. My friends came from all over the city, from Oak Park to the Southside to Lincoln Park, and all the neighborhoods in between. 

When I was 10, my dad taught me how to take the CTA bus by myself to school (we lived too close to be in busing range).  I loved my friends and the teachers there, how new and inexperienced my school was, but also how passionate everyone was willing to work to educate us. 

Chicago teachers are not paid as much as they deserve, and I remember one year we didn’t have school for over a week because they went on strike. My time and experience there taught me how to be grateful for what other people give up.

We moved to Naperville for me to have the same athletic opportunities that I had always dreamed about it as a kid.  This is where my childhood passion of playing sports came back because in Chicago there weren’t many leagues or a truly safe space to play outside, and my school didn’t have any sports teams at the time.

I discovered my passion for running after running track in junior high and to this day it is one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I’ve spent the last couple of years behind a camera, filming projects for North and other clients as a freelancer. (I’ve managed to skip all school dances and instead take photos.) I’m invested in all things visual arts, so you might often see reviews about movies, gear, and my personal take on other content creators’ styles. 

On top of filmmaking and other visual arts, I really have an interest in personal fitness and also productivity. Ideally I’d like to maybe write super simple recipes (because I am usually either pressed for time or energy) or reviews of apps I’ve used that really helped me in my personal life to accomplish small goals.