O, well I don't do any of the math homework, I just do the tests.
Outside of tests I rarely do school work, it's just projects, papers, and tests, "homework" can go die in a hole. When I do do it, it's because i didn't do well enough on the tests. But then I make up math problems for myself anyhow, I find doing it because I am told to is frustrating and generally a waste of time. It's mostly repetition.
Math for me becomes fun when I'm learning, so I'm constantly doing interesting things I find in the book that may be chapters ahead or behind where we are supposed to be, and then creating my own problem for myself that takes the ideas posed for that chapter but doesn't necessarily have it's answer in the book.
About being concise don't worry about it, I can barely write more than a page or two about ANYTHING, even if I'm interested and know a bit about the subject. Math isn't something I do for school, or to get a good grade, I do it to get it right, and to try and find new ways of solving problems. Whether I can show that to the person grading is irrelevant to me.
One thing I definitely have trouble with in math is mistakes, the wrong sign here, inputting the wrong value there, but mistakes can be fun, they can help you reevaluate how you think and where to check next time, and always be confident in your answer, however wrong it may be, because you more than likely got it right, or awfully close, and it can be fixed easily.
besides, i really hated it when my classmates kept asking me if they got it right...I don't know! I followed the same process you did, I got the same answer, but it doesn't make it right, like religion.
I don't know if this is right for everyone, but math is a lot of learning simple rules, and then applying them all over the place. especially in places that seem irrelevant to where you learned it. The people I have talked to about their difficulties in math appear to have problems with this, learning something in one area of math, and applying it in another.
I just think that math is meant to be fun, as absurd as that may sound. The idea that the Mandelbrot set is a 2-D graph of a 4-D elaboration of a simple equation is amazing. Fractals in general are amazing. as well as simple geometric shapes, or the rotation of squares in squares. Game Theory (which I know very little about), Probability, Randomness, Geometry, Physics, there's so much you can do with math!
You did say that being interested in things with math isn't the problem though (perhaps it's because EVERYTHING has math), but I definitely think that it should be approached as a fun, but challenging way to approach something, and to familiarize yourself with it,. It is really quite simple, but you need to know all the rules before you play the game.
SUMMATION: Just do it outside of school, find something you enjoy, find a way math applies, see if you can make a problem for yourself, and if you have difficulty because there are too many unknowns, fill some in with values, classes always help to fill in gaps of understanding.
But doing it by CHOICE I think is the most important, I'm currently doing one that has to do with a substance flowing into a cone with a dome on it, and then having that object slowly empty, and depending on the rates,, how long it will take to fill the cone-dome. I decided to start with a simple shape, but eventually i may move on to something more complicated.
I'm in a basic calculus course at the local community college now, but I've taken integral Calc already in HS, and my friend is in Multi-Variable at OSU, so I'm learning a lot through him also. IMO Algebra is the only thing really necessary before Pre-Calc, Geometry and Trig are good, but they end up explaining it all in Pre-Calc anyways.
