Why and when did you start blogging?

I started blogging in 6th Grade on a Russian children's social networking website and I had 18 followers! I blogged every day of the year, telling people about my first year in Middle School. I guess others found it interesting because I wrote about living in another country and studying in another language. Thanks to that little blog, I met my online friend Lena who I still talk to on Skype sometimes. Back then I was not really into anime and thought that it was weird, but Lena introduced me to it and so I became an otaku! I guess it changed my life in a way. Another "fan" I had was a seven(or so)-year-old Ukrainian girl. It seems like she looked up to me since she told her mother about my blog and both of them would leave comments.
I guess I started blogging back then because the summer of 2010 was pretty boring and the only thing I could do to entertain myself was write. I wrote a lot of fictional stories and created a website on googlesites where I posted them. Everyday blogging was some sort of challenge I set myself because I enjoyed writing so much, I could not live a day without it.
I wanted to carry on writing in that small blog I had, but I found a website called Blogger and decided to carry on writing in English for a bigger audience. I figured out that it would be better because a lot of my friends could see it. I thought it would be a way to keep in touch with those who left (like Katja or Peter).
Sometimes I wonder why I still have this blog. But, hey, I'm almost at 9000 views!