Species Counterpoint?!?!

So... this whole counterpoint thing is really confusing... I am sure that everyone else agrees. But I have been trying to get the hang of everything by playing out things on the piano, just to see if I am getting good sounding intervals, but then its like: Surprise! You cant use that interval because the rules of that Species says so! "tap, tap, tap... Yes, Johann?..." So yeah. Well, I think I can get the hang of things. And I am here for blogging my practicing. So here it is. The one thing that I have been having trouble with in class is singing the solfegge syllables with fixed Do, like with Dorian: re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do, re: re-fa-la-fa-re... I dont really have the brain power to sing that... and think about the lowered 3rd and 7th, which signifies the D minor scale... which I am singing with the regular C major solfegge.... it just confuses my brain. So what I did was I practiced all the modes on fixed do, just so I could possibly get through the class without having to write all the syllables out over each of the notes on the staff, including underlining which ones sound lowered if you are thinking in a major scale way... So I think I am getting the hang of things. Just one less thing to be worried about in counterpoint! That is always a good thing!