>>3
Please adopt a more positive attitude. Once you embrace the Calculus, you'll find that it's a new level of mathematical thinking. I consider it a "more natural" way of thinking about calculating things, especially in the real world. I know I'm going to offend some of the Calculus Purists, but using algebra and the concept of infinitesimals and limits, you break through the restrictions of algebra and enter a new realm of finding the metrics of all kinds of new objects. As long as you can sufficiently describe a curve with a function, then you can find rather precise characteristics of that curve -- its length, the area or volume it encloses, it's "curviness", etc.
The Calculus is a fucking better way of doing math. Algebra is sufficient for most people, but to truly understand math and to go beyond, you have to become one with Leibniz and Newton.
There are some fairly good workbooks out there for naturally prodding algebraic thinkers into the Calculus. I don't recall any of their titles, so you'll have to search for them yourself. College texts on the Calculus can be fairly over-assuming and I find them dis-serving of helping students make the transition. Spend an hour in a good (i.e. nerdy) bookstore and find one of those gems in all the rough stones. Thirty bucks and 1 month later, you'll love me so much for my advice you'll demand to have my children.