I thought that this deserved mention. All my life, I've been a reasonably good math student. In fact, I used to be kind of a freakin' genius at it. (I'd be overwhelmed by everyone asking for help, etc.) Last year in Pre-Calculus, however, was a torture test. Our teacher couldn't teach (everyone thought so), and the stuff we studied--it may has well have been written in Klingon.
This year, I'm having even more "fun" in AP Calculus. Integrals, limits, derivatives--the whole nine yards. Now, no offense meant to anyone who likes math--but this stuff seems so pointless to me! And everyone else! We waste all of our time doing hand-ins and studying for tests. But the difference between me and everyone else is, they all seem to have at least half a clue as to what's going on. I have NO idea! Well, let me clarify: differential calculus was okay, once I kind of figured it out. But this integral stuff--my god! I'm floundering in a swamp of washers and disks! (If you've taken calculus, you'll know what I mean!) And the BEST part is, in less than two weeks I get to take the AP exam--3 straight hours of busting my brains--half of it without a calculator!
Fear not, though--the exam doesn't affect my grade (not that there's that good a grade to be affected), I'm not majoring in math, and I've already been accepted to college--so I should just take it easy and do my best, right? Too bad it's going to make me feel like a total idiot anyway! 