One quote basically summarised (partly) what those experiences were:
"From this last year, I now know what I don’t want to be when I become a supervisor later on. I know I don’t want to be like her…. (Allison, PhD student)"

You can read it in full here.

My recent trip to Sydney was actually planned around my intention of attending this programme - Sydney Law School Postgraduate Conference on the 29 of October. It was a whole day programme held at the Sydney Law School, University of Sydney with 'Law and Social Reality' as the theme of the conference. 

The Keynote Speaker was Prof Jane Goodman-Delahunty. Her talk was focused on the need for more empirical legal studies to foster 'evidence-based decisions to promote social, procedural and distributive justice within organisations and the community'. She strongly promotes legal researchers to embark on inter-disciplinary research and create a cooperative ventures with researchers from other disciplines.

One of the papers presented really interest me - the one by Sonya Willis, on 'Civil Procedure Meets Social Reality: Can Case Management Really Help with the Unending Quest for Justice?'. She presented on what is considered as case management especially in NSW and whether the right to a fair hearing came into apparent conflict with principles of case management.

I specifically asked on whether ADR played any role in the Case Management... Although the overall answer to that - would be it depends...but based on Ms Wilis experiences in litigating civil cases, especially, some cases are worst of with the presence of compulsory ADR. Hmmmm....more points to ponder....

Anyway, it was great to have the chance to see the university and experienced the running and  'connection' from within, since it is the oldest university in Australia :-) I hope to be back some day!

  

ASLI conference started yesterday with a rather broad theme ''Law in a Pluralist Asia: Challenges and Prospects". The conference's presentations were divided into several plenary sessions and posters presentations. I think there's just too many interesting papers running at the same time, it's simply unfair for participants. I had the chance to sit in the Family & Children plenary session. I felt the time given to presenters was rather limited, imagine 1 hour for 5 papers of different gists and another 30 minutes or so for Q & A. Maybe I am rather naive, but that kind of arrangement defeated the main purpose you presented in the first place - sharing knowledge. I was also suprised that I didn't meet more familiar faces there, except for several of my former lecturers. Anyway, it was nice to see old friend Sonny, Kak Sham and also Ustaz (Dr.) Naim eventhough it's just a short chat between them.

The Borchardt Library, LTU, is undergoing a major 9.5 m worth of renovation on 2 of its 3 level. And I just found out! Ahhh... and I thought, all the construction signs outside the library stairs are for redeveloping some new shops in the AGORA. The library will soon moves its current entrance from level 2 to level 1, facing the AGORA, in a bit to have more spaces for workstations, incorporate the increased usage of technology and look more contemporary. The library has also moved all of its old books & monographs to an offsite location at Waterdale Road, known as 'Bundoora Annexe' and moved all the general collections on level 3 from its current location from one space to another on level 3 itself, depending on where the ongoing constructions are at the time.

Sounds like a whole lot of headache to me. And the best question is how do I find books now? Well, it involves a combination of human contact (& kudrat) & technology, of course. For books still in the library, I have to enquire at the Inquiry/ Loans desk(s) of the library. While for books and journal volumes/issues held at the Bundoora Annexe, I have to find them online, if available in an electronic version or else the hardcopies are available for loan. I just need to request the material for retrieval using the usual 'hold' services. The material will be delivered to the requesting library's "Hold" shelf. The items will normally be retrieved and returned to the "Hold" shelf Bundoora Reserve area within 24 hours for pick up after 1pm. Hmmm...it's just my luck, then, if can't find my original source and have to return to the library for them. Well, look at the bright side, I'll have an almost brand new library...sometime this year ;-)

On Friday I went to my SV, Lawrie's last class in La Trobe. The Mediating Family Conflict paper will no longer be offered next semester. Such a loss. Lawrie had served the university for more than 15 years. He has since moved on to working with the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) but will retain his adjunct position with LTU.

Interestingly, he designed the content of the paper to be slightly different every semester. If he’d come out with new findings or a new video or new ways of mediating conflict in family matters, which he always does with his colleague from outside the university, usually with Dr Jennifer Mcintosh or the AIFS, then he’ll include them in his class. You never get bored, even though he’s soft spoken, because aside from the interesting videos he showed in class, all the students participating in the class shared all their daily experience in dealing with conflict (most are psychology based, of course). It was a breath of fresh air compared to ‘most’ of the law papers I’m used to in my first 2 degrees. You don’t get that disapproving look and judgmental evaluations of every other statements you made during discussion time. I believe I was more at ease in his class.

The phasing out of the course started with the closing of the Conflict Resolution postgraduate programs in the Law Faculty, mostly due to staff movements to greener pasture and with all the budgets cut, the situation have gotten even worst. The postgraduate program, initially managed by Lawrie’s good friend Tom Fisher was a joint program with the public health sciences program. But since Tom’s ‘semi’ retirement along with more and more staff leaving the law faculty, it’s only ‘logical’ for the law faculty and the public health department to phase out the program.

Conflict resolution ‘people’ are not ‘typical law’ kind of people. I guess there’s a lot of ‘creative’ differences arising from such collaboration. Throw in the money problem…it’ll get even more complicated. So people tend to move on…or move along…if you know what I mean L. As Lawrie mentioned on Friday, lawyers tend to throw in all their latin jargons at parties in family conflict, but at the end of the day it meant nothing to them (parties). What matters is how are we supposed to help those families go through their phase of conflict with the least amount of disruptions as possible. Some may not agree with him, because in legal ‘nature’, the question of ‘my rights’ will always be the prevalent point raised and that’s what the lawyers thought they should be fighting for. But in family conflict post separation, that is secondary especially when the parties have children. The main issue should always be the children and helping them adjust to the situation post separation.

All this remind me of my research problem and the solution I am suggesting...seems so far away from being implemented. But this is only the beginning to a better condition in Malaysia, Insya Allah.

After five months, and when it seems that my endnoting activities could not cope with my "article-printing" activities (but not actually manage to read everything, yet), I finally resort to EndNote X2. The previous version X, was rather 90s in its appearance. It's rather stable, except for its Cite While You Write (CWYW) feature. X2 looks refreshing and it has better features which makes managing my references easier than X.

Nevertheless, one of the problem with me using EndNote is, its inability to use footnotes/notes in almost all its styles output. In law research and writing, footnoting is almost a must. Luckily, Australia has already developed its own legal citation guide (AGLC) and style output to be used with the Endnote software. But you need to rig it yourself (with some basic instructions) to make it work.

I have been looking into it for the past week, and it seems that it's working and I think I am getting the hang of it. However, in order to speed the software up, I deleted almost all the syles output in the styles folder, except for the ones I think I'm going to use. Furthermore Latrobe Uni provided their students with a free CD of the program for personal use, so I can easily reinstall any of these styles in the future. Once, that's done, it runs much faster with Word. Imagine, there's thousands of styles in the program, no wonder it's so slow.

Anyway, the rule is never to totally rely on the program, it has its flaws. Sometimes the flaws comes from you in entering the data. Another important rule, is always to back it up, in 3 DIFFERENT places (your C drives is not counted as a different place) in both the ens. file and the rtf.file. Print the list of bibliography everyday after you updated it.

While trying to minimize my procrastinating habits (lots of procrastinating involves looking for tips & solutions) I found this book in the library. It takes me some time to actually start reading it (more procrastinating there...). The author emphasizes on a funny schedule, where you actually planned for play & pleasure and focuses on work for only 30 minutes at a time. I'm going to try it out for 2 weeks and see how it goes. But I reckon the book's worth some time of your life, especially if you are a hardcore procrastinator (like me?).

If you don't know where to start (or how to) your research, I highly recommend this book. It's not field specific, but not too broad either. It has a simple & friendly tone to it, making it an easy read and it will not bore you to death ;-) (important, since you have only 3 years to do it). Look it up in your library, or keep a copy (recommended) since it assist throughout your research, up till your writing up phase.