1) I have had my first manual transmission car for about a week. I had
my first experience with a stick shift car 2 weeks ago. After
practicing for hours and hours in a parking lot with an 89 honda I
eventually got the basics of driving a stick. I am comfortable driving
my car and yesterday I manage to drive through rush hour traffic in
Downtown Washington DC (and I only stalled once :-). All of the people
who worked with and taught me how to drive a stick remind me not to
"ride" the clutch. So far I do not ride the cluth except when parallel
parking.
When I park I usually just give the car a tap of gas as I ease up on
the of the clutch. However  I usually do not take my foot off the
clutch when parking (because i do not want to give the car too much
gas/speed. But i dont take it off the clutch because I dont want my
car to cutoff, lunge and scrape my rims like what happend the first
time i tried to park my car). & the same process goes for when I am
parking and I put my car into 1st gear)......... Is my "riding" the
clutch while parking, bad for my car?

2) the other day I had to "semi" parallel park my car on a hill [my
rear end facing up the hill]. Fortunatly there was a large space
available. Reversing my car up the hill was the most difficult thing I
have done in the stick. ( I can do a decent job of going forward
starting off from a stop on a hill). However reversing on an incline
was a lot harder. Can you give me any advice?