The Mysterious Black Magic of Mathematics

Okay, so I must admit that after tonight's Calculus 3 homework, I am officially flabbergasted. Usually, I am at least able to grasp the concept and understand the worked out problems, but tonight's problems were just utterly ridiculous. I looked through some of the solutions, and numbers and variables would just suddenly disappear and others would appear with no apparent reason or explanation. I would get the first two or three lines of equations worked out correctly, but then the next fifteen made absolutely no sense whatsoever. I was seriously contemplating just writing "insert black mathmagic here" and then poof, putting down the answer. Oh, I remember back in high school watching "Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land" every year in Mr. Butler's class. Perhaps old Donald could provide some explanation to the mysterious black magic of mathematics? Or if I could only find Mr. Molleker, the Master of Gibberish himself. I tell you, I think that he could probably prove anything. He actually showed us a mathematical proof for why 1+1=1. Rather insane, but then again, I think you have to be a tad bit on the loony side to be a mathematician. I guess I'm not quite crazy enough for that. Well, only one more semester of math after this, and I'll be done forever with that subject, so I guess I can look forward to that at least.