All you have to remember about driving a stick is this:
Put it in first gear (clutch down, shift stick into first, hehe) and then sit there. Gently lift your left foot and wait until you can feel the car start to move. This is the point at which the tranmission engages, and it is different in every car, and its different because the clutch gets worn differently depending on the driving behaviour of the vehicle's owner (supposedly the one who drives it the most). At this time also, you need to give it a little gas, so step lightly on the gas pedal. If you don't do this, the vehicle will stall because no gas is getting to the engine. The vehicle will lurch forward a bit and die. You'll have to start the vehicle again.
After that, just remember not to red-line the car (if you have a tachometer), or in other words rev the engine
too high. You do want to stretch it out, that is, rev the engine a bit, but not too much. Don't shift for the sake of shifting! You'll just ruin the tranmission.
When in doubt, always remember that if you depress the clutch downwards, you are in neutral, just as if you had physically put the car in neutral. So if you're ever in doubt if you're going to stall the car (by not giving it enough gas when it starts to move out of a standstill), just press the clutch down.
I had one hell of a time learning how to drive my father's beat up 1984 BMW 320i manual 5 speed. I now own a 1998 Toyota Tercel CE w/ manual transmission and won't buy a vehicle with an automatic transmission if I can help it, even if it means driving through bumper to bumper traffic at 5 Km/h constantly shifting!
I'm probably a control freak deep down inside my shy self!
