Thank you (Gracias)

I asked my classmate Humberto, a native Spanish speaker, why I say thank you more then he does.  According to him I thank people too much because I do not know what I am talking about.  The example he gave is:

Somebody: Hola!
Me: Gracias!
Somebody: Como te llama?
Me: Gracias!

Funny stuff.

Hablo espanol mal (I speak bad Spanish)

Noble as my efforts are I apparently have some recurring bad habits when it comes to speaking Spanish. I have to thank my classmate, friend, and unofficial tutor for making fun of me every chance he gets.  My best guess is the abuse I am receiving is his way of getting back at all the people who ever made fun of him while he was learning English.  I am definitely taking one for the team... a big one (thank me later America).

What goes wrong?  Here is a short list:

1) First of all I apparently speak like a woman.  Not the tone of my voice, just the fact that I always seem to use the feminine form of a nouns/adjectives when referring to myself (La).
2) Not able to keep up with a conversation (by the time the conversation is over I have just realized what the topic was)
3) Try to guess the Spanish version of a word by adding an 'o' or 'a' to the end of an English word
4) Use my hands a lot when I speak (makes me look more Italian)