[mindcrime]

I literally went all the way back to "pre algebra" when I started down this path. It bruises the ego a little bit, but as you say, it goes faster the nth time around. And it really is important to have the prereq stuff down, or you'll start flailing with the later material, not because it's conceptually difficult, but because of not remembering how to do the "easy" stuff.

In one of his videos Professor Leonard says "Calculus is the class you take to finally fail Algebra". I think there is some merit to that.