When one moves to Finland, one has has an option to go through the immigrant intergration program with the employment office. I came to Finland on a visa based upon a family tie, that is to say, my spouse is Finnish. Permission to work was included in my visa. Anyway, one can be in this program for three years. I am on my last year. During this time, I have been taking classes to learn Finnish. At first, I was taking classes Helsingin Aikuisopisto. It was a really great place and my teacher was dyanmic and awesome. There I met my bestfriend in Finland. She is originally from Thailand. I got accepted into a immigrant preporatory course in Espoo, Espoon tekniikan ja kulttuurin oppilaitos, it was ok but there were mostly younger people in the class and it soon became tedious. I decided to apply at another school that would hopefully have people my age. I ended up going to Helsingin sosiaali ja terveysalan oppilaitos. In previous posts, I have given links to the films I had made during my study there. If you don't read Finnish, it is a College of social and health care. So, these schools prepare immigrants for there next step which would be to apply to a job, a vocational school, a polytechnic,or even a university. Well, anyway, the point of this post is this. Here is the video of my graduation. A very unusual affair, I was reminded of a wake or a funeral when we came in bearing lit candles and the nearly all of the lights in the gym were off, very curious. Now, I am in a monikulttuurinen talouskoulu maahanmuuttajille at Helsingin Diakoniaopisto. I think it is swell. We are learning to cook, bake, clean, all that home ec stuff which I can do but I never really learned the proper techniques before. Well, that is another post. Watch the video.