The Frank Pachino site!

My father told me of my namesake years ago, and since then, I have felt great respect for myself. He told me that a long time ago, he decided that he was going to have a son named Francis Michael, because all of the people that he knew named Francis were famous people, whether they were writers, poets, actors, or of any other profession! He felt that by giving me the name Francis, he sealed my fate for greatness. Since that time, I have strived to live up to that as best as I can. I work EXTREMELY hard in school, striving for excellence in academics, and work hard on my various hobbies, but then, that's farther down.

The majority of my life was spent in the town of Jacksonville, the Trade City of Florida. After years of living in the same home at 7205 Sharbeth Drive South, my family decided that it was time for a change (that and my father lost his satellite installation job). So, we packed up our belongings, giving the care of my house over to my Aunt Alex and her boyfriend Jason. As such, we moved to a house up in Charlotte, North Caroline, where we attended Clear Creek Elementary school (my brother and I).

However, the house proved shoddy, and ill fit for us. Therefore, we packed yet again and moved to another house, farther into the city. We spent a year there, going to J.H. Gunn Elementary school. Afterwards however, circumstances forced us back to Sharbeth.

Afterward, attending Jefferson Davis Middle school, my grades gradually began to suffer, and was involved in a multitude of fighting where I was always the victim. My parents became worried, deciding to move me to a different school. So I went to Rebault Middle School, which ended up being a small mistake. So many fights plagued me there that at times I wondered if Jeff Davis was any better. Still, I did manage to pass 6th grade by the skin of my teeth, but the threat of fights still remained. My parents asked my aunt Alex if she could allow me to stay down in Palmetto, Florida to attend school there. They also felt that it was an opportunity for us to explore that area and decide if we wanted to move there.

Sadly enough, fights plagued me in Lincoln Memorial Middle school as well, although they were not as bad there as they were in Jacksonville. Still, my grades suffered. It had seemed that the only bright things at the school were Band Class and someone in the Band class... Someone that I had a crush on, but for the sake of privacy, I will not name her (I already have a girlfriend now, so I'm fine.) To make matters worse, a situation arose that caused even more pain.

One day during my math class, I suddenly had an insight. I had recently been reading a multitude of books, and a thought had occurred to me. "I can write books like that..." So I began to write a small story about an alien named Sebath who landed on Earth with an insidious plot to turn Earth into a barren wasteland. While plotting the storyline, I came over a complication. I hadn't been able to think of any original names to put into my story... So, being the most idiotic of 13-year old children, I decided to use the names of people I knew at the school. 

As you can probably guess, this was a very big mistake. Upon showing it to some of the people whom I thought were at least "friends" to me, they recognized the people's names on the story. Not bothering to say anything, they snuck to their friends without my knowledge. The maddened guys decided to take matters into their own hands. They snuck into my backpack and took the folder with my story out of it, and took it to a teacher. The teacher then turned it over to the principal of the school.

Upon reading it, the principal immediately summoned me to the office and confronted me. According to the principal, the situation looked like a Columbine-like letter. That naturally amazed me, but then, I was young.

My father came and took me home to avoid any more confrontation with the school, since the principal had said that legal ramifications could come of this. In doing so, I missed lots of work, and ended up failing 7th grade. My brother, who had stayed up in Jacksonville, failed 6th grade, but my sister was doing wonderfully in Elementary school...

I was immediately spirited back to Jacksonville over the summer. During the time that I was on the road, my family had another plan. To send me, my brother, and my father, to begin living in Plaquemine, Louisiana for a year, in order to prepare for moving there. Upon moving with my grandmother and grandfather, my brother and I began attending Crescent Elementary/Middle School. There, things began to improve. I brought home A's and B's, managing to make friends, true friends, friends who stuck by me through thick and thin. My father had begun working at a job at Shintec, where he loaded railcars.

However good it was for us, my mother felt that it was unsatisfactory for us to be living in a trailer (which is what we had moved into during our time in school) and ordered us to come back to Jacksonville.

Once back in Jacksonville, we ended up having to return to Jefferson Davis Middle School. I had dreaded returning, but the fact that all of the kids that had known me were in high school gave a boost to my confidence. I entered with a fresh mind into Mrs. Irish's American History classroom. Through the various classes, I began to learn as never before, to begin to feel the insatiable thirst for knowledge that had so eluded me before. I read continuously, becoming infamous for reading while eating lunch. I always was one to answer in class, a quality that Mrs. Irish began to pick at slightly. I picked back, and soon we would begin to have this little "fights" that were so amusing.

During my time at Jeff Davis Middle School, I met two students who shared my science class by the names of Ryan and Badr. My brother had told me a while ago that he had had friends in his time at Jefferson Davis by the names of Ryan and Badr. I introduced myself to them, and we became very good friends. Best of friends, actually. I also met another person who became one of my best friends. Andrew Spencer took my Algebra 1 class at the last period of the day. We began to talk after I had introduced myself before, and now we are really great friends.

Another friend that I remembered from my brother was Kyle Barett. Kyle shared my History class, and I introduced myself to him there. We both shared a lot of the same interests in things such as games, sports, and other various things. Kyle has also been a kind of guiding friend for me, helping me to do things that I normally wouldn't do by myself...

Yet another of my best friends is Timothy Holden. At Jefferson Davis, he portrayed himself as the "Pimp" of the school, and I laughed whole-heartedly at that. At first he became slightly peeved at me, but once we got to know each other, we became good friends. At the time, we were into the Pokemon Trading Card Game (in reality, we still are) and Tim was the one out of all of us with the largest collection. Then it transgressed to Beyblades, then to the Yugioh TCG.

After the year at Jefferson Davis Middle, I graduated as an A-student, and moved on to Frank H. Peterson Academies of Technology, along with my friend Kyle. Andrew went off to Rebault High, Tim went to Paxon High, and the rest of my friends went to Forrest High. For a while, I was happy.

Then the hammer struck. In October of 2003, the center where my mother worked was closing down, and she was going to lose her job at AT&T. My father's pension alone wouldn't be able to support us at the house, and only one alternative remained. There was a transfer available for my mother in a town called Kenner in Louisiana. We searched diligently for a home near Kenner, knowing that the offer could be scooped up at any moment. As if in answer to our prayers, we ran across a house on 845 Marino Drive, in a very small town named Norco.

We packed furiously, my parents wanting to leave, but I was quite reluctant to leave all of my friends, and everything that I knew and now loved. As if to put emphasis on our move, my father announced that he had sold the house on 7205 Sharbeth Dr S.

I was appalled. He was throwing us headlong into Louisiana, with nothing to fall back to, should we fail... We drove for hours until we reached Norco, Louisiana. Our new home.

My parents wasted little time in getting us enrolled in school. My sister went to Norco Elementary, my brother to Hurst Middle, and I went to Destrehan High school. At first I was VERY nervous, because I was back in the position that I had been at for time and time over.

It turned out that I had nothing to fear. Destrehan High proved to be a good school. I made many friends there, including a lot of the teachers there. I was involved in Writing Club as the Public Relations Officer. I even held a job after school, working and fixing computers and setting up things.

Just as I had begun to settle in and get used to the area (approximately 9 months later) AT&T closed their center in Kenner, thus laying off my mom. My dad, who had been unsuccessful in finding work, had begun to regret his decision of selling the house in Jacksonville. It had almost appeared like all was lost, until a ray of hope began to shine.

We had moved in with my grandma Sylvia for a little while, becoming enrolled at the schools in Palmetto for only a few days, when news came. Citibank, a major banking corporation, had begun hiring for E-service jobs. My mom and dad went and signed up, went to the interviews, and were accepted for the jobs. In the meantime, we had been looking for houses to live in. My parents did not want to move back into the area that we used to live in, the Westside of Jacksonville, and they did not want to move to the Northside. So they set their sites on Mandarin community.

We managed to find a house on 4429 Hollygate Ct. just off of Old St. Augustine Rd, which was lucky for us. We moved in as soon as possible, and once again, my parents immediately enrolled us into school. My sister was sent to Loretto Elementary, my brother to Mandarin Middle, and I, was sent to Mandarin High School.

Once again, the mixed feelings of fear and anticipation gripped me. Once again, I was coming to a new school. Almost like a new life. I had already begun to miss Destrehan High School, where even the Seniors whom I'd never met knew my name and reputation. Thankfully, I had little to fear. Now attending Mandarin High, I've made new friends, and met old ones (namely Phillip Gibbens, whom I'd know at Jefferson Davis.) And life is getting better...

ought of me

I've strived through many hardships. Maybe not as much as people in the world have gone through, but believe me, I have gone through enough. Having to move from school, suffering through places without friends... And I wouldn't take back a single bit of it, because in fact, its made me a better person. I realize now that the things that happened during my life happened for a reason. Take for instance my failing 7th grade. If I hadn't failed, I wouldn't have my best friends. I probably would not have moved to Louisiana. I wouldn't have met the love of my life... Actions have consequences. As I've heard before, "You must endure the storm to see the rainbow at the end."