How I first started playing pokemon:
I was about 6 or something when I broke my ankle. Now, it was right near my birthday, and I was feeling pretty upset. I couldn't have that birthday party at the Funplex like I had wanted. So I thought it was just another day, but then....HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Lots of lights and balloons and party things. We had cake and everything and I had a blast. But the best was yet to come...for my birthday, I had received a Game Boy Color and Pokemon Yellow! I was so excited, as this was the game everybody wanted. Now, I was a very good reader, so this game was no trouble for me. Even though I thought the Boulderbadge was some kind of courage you gained called Boldabridge. My party was, at first, a Metapod and a Pikachu. Eventually I gained the legendary Mewtwo and caught a Dragonite. After that, the next step was the recently released Pokemon Gold and Silver. I just had to have one. I had saved up enough money for one game; Pokemon Gold was my choice. playing through was fun as usual, me and my friend often discussed it. I remember how he got the Espeon before me; I was so jealous. But better yet was the great Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire! This introduced tons of new features and gave meaning to my life (well, not really). I played this up until 5th grade, about 1 year.
How I started battling online/How I found out about Smogon:
After I had quit pokemon for a bit, I started to play it again in 6th grade. But I realized, where had the joy gone? It was all so easy now. Looking for something more, I found the Gamefaqs message boards. Now, I couldn't get an account at that time, because I was too young and honest, but I loved reading the posts. I saw how users described evs and ivs and hidden power and I was like: "wtf?". So I saw a mention of Smogon in one of the topics, and went there. Again, too young to join, but I read every strategy article. I built teams in my ingame, but alas, there was nobody to battle with. All of my old poke friends had gone on to...ugh....Grand Theft Auto and friends. I saw netbattle, but I have strict parents who HATE downloading/buying things off the computer. But when I asked, they let me, and I was very happy. Unlike most people, my first netbattle haven was not smogon. I played standard for a few days, then went straight to aa's modserver, where I recognized every single person there (they had no idea who I was, of course). So I got into the modded metagame and played it for a couple months, then went back to mainly standard battling. And here I am today. ^_^