Welcome to Ghita Andersen Othman’s World. I call it Gaonomics, because it’s more catchy and fun than using my name, but also because it has other meanings too. The word Gaonomics is a combination of my initials GAO and genomics. Broadly defined genomics involves the study of an organism’s entire genome, which in my definition is linked to my purpose of digging into my life to find meaning and knowledge that I can share with others and in particular my children in future.
I am a Danish woman, who is living in Malaysia with my Malaysian husband and 2 children. I have lived in Malaysia since September 2000 and run my own company together with my husband. Our company is called Mobition, is a digital media and communication specialist company and we work mainly with clients from the healthcare and environmental industry. Although my work is a very big part of my life, my children’s happiness and healthy upbringing is my number one priority in life. Because of my busy working schedule, I spend most of my free-time available together with my children, and therefore don’t have much time for anything else. Whatever activities I do besides work, I do together with them, shopping, exercising, cooking etc. and if time allows a bit of socialising, I prefer to bring my children along, whenever possible.
I have created this blog for various purposes, which combined will give a full picture of my journey through life. First and foremost my blog is dedicated my children, and it is my hope that one day, when they have grown up, they will visit my blog, read through my postings and feel a sense of belonging and understanding of who they are as people based on what happened in their past and what contributed to their belief system and values. This is important because I believe that only by understanding and accepting who we are on the inside, can we be truly happy and at peace with ourselves and the world around us. It is my hope that my children will be able to learn from my experiences and knowledge and use it constructively as a stepping stone in their own personal development to reach their full potential.
It’s not about expecting them to do well for the sake of feeling good about myself or for other superficial reasons, but because I sincere believe that true happiness is connected to our self esteem, and only by achieving our goals in life, will we genuinely feel good about ourselves, which leads to profound happiness. And that is the aim for me, to do everything I can to teach my children to pursue happiness based on good values and habits and a positive belief system.
The second purpose of this blog is to bring awareness about issues related to education, which I feel very passionate about, but still have a lot to learn about. Since my early teens I have been reading books about personal development and my mantra, which explains the above, is that we are responsible for our own lives, and from there lies my interest of pursuing personal development in all areas of life including education. I want to take an all-round approach to education, rather than the academic aspect of it, and talk more about the importance of non-academic topics, like life skills that as much as subjects like English and Maths contribute to a person’s success in life.
But more than anything else, the need to write about educational issues came about from the experiences my daughter has with the new school she is attending and the reason for writing about these experiences, which I consider to be the best way of approaching our children’s education at this point in time, is so my friends can compare it to the education that their children receive and start questioning whether their children’s school provides the same forward thinking approach to education.
I am also going to write about other areas of my life, like my work and use my blog as a platform to showcase the projects that Mobition has completed.
That’s all for now. I wish you happy reading!
Best regards
Ghita Andersen Othman
Hi Ghita. My name is Sun Sun. I am an educational therapist specializing in remediating dyslexics. My office is in Setia Alam. I would like to invite you to visit my blog. Please email me if you have any comment.
http://www.sunreadingsystem.blogspot.com
Best,
Sun Sun
From Ghita: Many thanks for visiting my blog and telling me about yours. I would gladly post your comment for others to know about your blog as well. I believe in sharing information for the benefit of all, especially if it can help others, and I think that you have a lot to offer, but as I don’t know you personally, I have to inform my readers that this is not an endorsement, but merely information to be shared, which is done in good faith, and therefore I kindly request the readers to make their own informed decision and kindly exempt me of any responsibility for issues that may arise in future as a result of sharing this information. You may also be interested in visiting the following website about dyslexia at http://www.dyslexiaglobalsupport.com.
By: Tan Sun Sun on August 2, 2009
at 1:32 pm
I agree with you that Tenby is a wonderful school. My daughter just joined this year and loves it. The teachers are great! But there are some issues which can’t be neglected as mere teething problems. The management has to get serious to provide changing rooms for kids after PE lessons. They may not be able to keep a full time cleaner for washroom to say the kids can change in the washroom as the washrooms won’t be clean enough to change. It is not good that the kids have to hide behind desks to change. There are somethings that can’t be compromised.
From Ghita: Thank you very much for your comment and I am glad to hear of another happy child in Tenby
Regarding the changing rooms, I haven’t heard about this issue before, so I checked with my children, and they say there are changing rooms in the Gymnasium building, one for girls and one for boys as well as changing rooms by the swimming pool, so I don’t know why changing in the washrooms or in other places is necessary, which I agree with you is not a good solution. Perhaps you could clarify it with the school or visit the changing rooms yourself?
By: shoba on October 7, 2009
at 4:19 pm
Hi Ghita,
They spoke of gym but unsure why they don’t do so for primary kids. Some parents also spoke up in the greet and meet and the class teacher came up with a solution of having a partition in the class. They’ve one now but it would be better if they can do some better arrangement.
Yesterday just quipped to the principal that she should make a surprise visit to the toilet. I didn’t explain much though. In the primary washroom both the squatting ones aren’t usable and one of the other toilet doesn’t have a lock functioning, the dustbin overflowing with pads, ( primary wash room, so hope you understand something needs to be done.), and stinking too, actually when I took my girl it was just the start of the day.
Unfortunately this is the situation in many schools I’ve visited. Sri Cahaya, Beacon house was so too, not to mention of national schools where the stinking smell reaches out of the washroom. I’ve even seen a kindy where a child was sitting on the toilet bowl crying for help to be washed when the teachers were busy with all other stuff. I lose all hopes on regular schooling when I see these kind of things. But Tenby is quite a good school. My daughter loves the school.
In India most private schools have a cleaner stationed in the primary washrooms just as in the shopping mall wash rooms here in Malaysia. I suppose here it would cost rm750 extra to have one so.
Hopefully the school will take care of these small things as it is a really nice school.
From Ghita: Thank you for sharing and I am glad to hear your daughter loves the school. I am not aware of the gym arrangements, as my children do other sports, and about the toilets, yes, it’s important to have clean toilets, as especially girls won’t use the toilets the whole day, which is not healthy for them, if they think it’s dirty and smelly, but as you mention, you have addressed it to the school, which is the right way to go about it.
However you may want to write a friendly email to the school regarding your concerns and suggestions, as it would be easier for the school to address the issues, when in writing, as I can imagine that the Principal receives many such comments throughout the day, but won’t be able to remember everything, as she has so many other obligations and things to do on a daily basis. How about you write to the Operations department rather than the Principal, as I would think the toilet issue is an operation and maintenance issue, hence the Principal is not the right person to approach regarding this.
Perhaps you could call the school and ask for Mr Lim’s email address, as I think he is the first entry point before Mr Chua, who is the Chief Operating Officer in charge of the operations and maintenance of the school among other things.
Thank you!
By: shoba on December 3, 2009
at 1:05 am
Hi,
I came from the local government secondary school, I remembered during our PE lesson, me and other classmates either changed our clothes in the class or used the washroom, but we are in the girl school. Not sure about the co-ed school.
during the primary school, we usually have our PE lesson in the morning, so most of us will wearing our PE shirt and pants first, then wear the school uniform, which is easier to removed.
From Ghita: Dear Emmon, thanks for sharing. Tenby students also wear their PE kit to school if they have PE in the morning and then change afterwards to their school uniform, as it makes sense and doesn’t waste any time.
By: Emmom on December 28, 2009
at 1:08 pm
Dear Friend,
I was indeed very impress with your blog and shared it with my daughter too. I must agree that true happiness comes from within and one must be happy with himself or herself b4 anything else. Though my daughter is going through some tough time in school with some of her friends humilating and insulting her, I still believe she is a strong person and the best gift GOD has sent to us. I must say that parents should educate their child to respect other children and not teach them to bad-mouth others. Like my daughter believes, LET THEM TALK MUM. It is only for a while. Sooner or later, it will stop. She is indeed a champ in sports and education and a great sunday school child.
From Ghita: Dear Kiran, I am glad you like my blog, thank you. I haven’t been active for a while, because of too much work, but I intend to write whenever I can. I think your daughter sounds very strong, but I have taken it one step further with my daughter, as I have bought a good book that teachers children to stand up for themselves and their friends in an assertive way that don’t keep the fighting going but to be respectful while still feeling empowered by being able to say something back to the bully(ies), so it can stop. Ignoring and waiting it out don’t always work. I know this because I was bullied in school all my life and I never learned to stand up for myself during my school days, tried to ignore it and the bullying continued. Only by speaking up assertively will you get the respect you deserve, and I intend to teach this to my daughter until she can do it. I agree with you that parents have a responsibility to teach their children to treat other people nicely and what’s right and what’s wrong to say and do. Parents can’t just leave that up to children to figure out, as values and manners need to be talked about and passed down the generations to ensure that children behave properly and treat others with respect and kindness.
By: Kiran on December 30, 2009
at 8:20 am