Continental Confusions

After timing myself on knitting 2 rows of the Regina scarf (9 minutes total), I decided that I needed to learn how to knit Continental style to speed things up.  I've spent the day and half a skein of yarn trying to figure it out.  My fingers hurt, my brain hurts, and my soul hurts from wasting yarn.  Is that sad?  I think so.  I think I've gotten the hang of knitting, but I am definitely struggling with purling.  I decided to make a garter stitch scarf out of the orange Hopscotch yarn I got in Savannah, but it's not knitting up nearly as soft as it is on the skein.  Ho hum.