Welcome!
I've been driving the same car (with manual transmission too) since last fall, and it's decently fuel efficient.
I'm seeing ~50 mpg US with mine in spring temperatures, but most of my driving is on the open road at moderate speeds. Also, I've added a bunch of mods to mine (link below). MPG was lower in the depths of winter, of course.
A Scangauge or equivalent is absolutely your best first step. (Actually your best first step was getting the manual trans! Congrats on that.)
FYI:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...7-a-30111.html
Also for fun:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...dan-31498.html
I'm VERY pleased with the Civic. It's responsive & comfortable and feels very refined compared to what I'm used to driving. But coming from a Metro/Firefly, that describes just about every car.
