It's official: I am an algebra moron

It's page 246, in my Math 103 book. The header at the, well, head,
describes the content as "5.4 - Solving Problems Using Factoring."
Which, I've gathered so far, is an ancient form of torture. There's no
way around it.

My difficulty here isn't, I like to think, an inherent lack of
intelligence; it's that I--unlike those that come up with this
crap--recognize it for what it is: retarded. Well that, and I don't
understand or care to understand all these little rules and ways of
solving equations. "Difference of Squares" sounds like a thick book
from ancient Britain (before it was Britain), not some relevant way of
solving problems which I should be familiar with. All this math--even
at an algebra level--without context is remarkably frustrating.
Economics makes math fun, interesting, relevant. If someone can show
me a valid use for binomials and factoring, THEN I'll start caring,
and then I'll start learning it happily.

It's a flaw, but I almost literally cannot learn anything which I
can't couch in relevance and context. Psychology it's not hard to do
that with, anthropology is a little harder, economics is hard but very
relevant, algebra is hit and miss. No wonder people hate math and why
so few appreciate and take math: it's taught in a way that makes it so
dry I have to increase my water consumption to offset the dehydration.

Nonetheless, here I am struggling through the latter parts of my
algebra book. The worst part is: if I want to be serious about
economics, I'll have to take a lot more math...math which is also
taught completely without context.

I'm just frustrated right now, and I know it. Frustrated that I'm so
"smart" and yet am struggling with college algebra (think high school
Algebra II). Frustrated, ultimately, because I expect it to come
easily to me because of my superior intellect (or some horseshit).
Frustrated because I should already know this stuff. Frustrated to be
forced to recognize I'm maybe not that smart...and all that that could
mean: possibly worse grades (even if I put forth good effort),
withdrawal of my parents financial support (they subsidize half my
tuition--but supposedly require a 3.0, which could be pretty difficult
to achieve with a major in economics and minors in math and
statistics), which would mean I'd have to work more which could mean
even worse grades (less time to study), and both cases mean no grad
school. No grad school option is scary because I see grad school as
the road to the really meaningful careers.

Still, I know that everyone has had to learn this stuff (algebra and
so on) at one time or another. And that most people, even smart
people, struggle to learn things for the first time. Effort and
persistence ultimately matter more than raw intellect anyway. I can do
this. One way or another, I will do this.

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