I suck HARD at arithmetic. Like, massively hard. If I can do it in my head, I get it right. If it's one of those things where i have to show my work, I blow it. Yet I have an engineering degree with post-graduate work in acoustics and biomechanics. I did more calculus and differential equations as an acoustical consultant than any other graduate I knew. "math" is the stuff you can't do with a calculator. The shit you can do with a calculator? That's just number crunching. We invented abaci and trig tables and slide rules and calculators and computers and Siri to deal with that shit. All you need to know is if the answer looks right. The trick to learning "math" is to make it through to Calculus. Calculus is pretty much where the mathematicians say "okay, enough of these bullshit numbers. Let's dance." Calculus is where you start to learn exactly how the world works and everything opens up like The Matrix. If you keep going things get aggro. I once had a 2-hour final that started with "imagine a function", had 3 problems on it, and the only number on the page was "1" (the problems were lettered a, b and c). I suck at arithmetic. My wife rules at it. Incidentally, she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor's in Math. And we see the world in remarkably similar terms.