I am Neuroscience PhD, a humanist, skeptic, feminist, avid reader, science enthusiast, woolly-liberal über-nerd, and, as of October 2015, father to the Lykketroll.

I moved from England to Norway in January 2012 and live in Lørenskog with my wife, the Lykketroll, and our two aging rescue cats, Socrates and Schrödinger. 

I am on paternity leave from the 4th of July to the 18th of November. 

The job I am on leave from is as an  Associate Professor and Head of Studies at the Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences. My background is in child neurodevelopment (my PhD looked into the relationship between fatty acids like omega-3 and cognitive development in young children) but I now work on a hodge-podge of things roughly within the field of Universal Design of ICT 50% of the time, the other 50% of my time I am Head of the 'General' Studies (Allmenn in Norwegian) Unit, which is comprised of around 24 academics within a range of fields, including mathematics, physics, Norwegian, and technology and leadership.

In between working and doing the usual dad things,  I like hiking and running in the beautiful Norwegian outdoors, cooking and playing video games. 

If I believed in souls I would say that mine was born in Norway. 

I plan to sleep when I'm dead.

Soundtrack to the Troll's birth

Tulpesh Patel
Fun, Music

In between all the feeds and poops during the first couple of days, I made a playlist of all the songs I connected with the Troll's birth. I still listen to this playlist now and then (this morning in fact as we talked to drop-in nursery, which is when I had the idea of pulling my post off of Facebook and blogging it) and re-live all the happiness and hysteria of that crazy, crazy day.

Becky G - Break a Sweat: The song looping in my head during the actual birth. Took a ridiculous amount of effort to give Marte the appropriate encouragement whilst she pushed (Well done! Nearly there! etc.) instead of singing this at her.

Shakira - Hips Don't Lie: A long-running thing between us because of my wife's 'birthing hips'. In immediate post-birth hysteria I might just have said "I told you your hips don't lie!".

Ace of Base - All That She Wants: About two hours after the birth, my wife gleefully informs me that "It wasn't as bad as I thought. We could definitely have another, I reckon". Needless to say, this came to mind and was sung back at her.

Drake - Hotline Bling: The earworm that's become the Troll's/my favourite soothing tune. Ending up doing a weirdly similar dance too when trying to calm him.

Kelis - Milkshake: The refrain burst out of my wife the first time the Troll took to the boob.

Justin Bieber - What do you mean?; Zara Larsson & MNEK - Never Forget You: The first two songs I heard when I got in the car to drive home to check in on the cats and get some food in before we left the hospital the next day.

Radioahead - No Surprises: One of my favourite songs by my favourite band, playing on the radio as I drove back to the hospital after sorting out the cats.

Taylor Swift - Bad Blood (had to use the Ryan Adams cover here, but I actually prefer it to the original): It was playing as we drove home from the hospital. My wife was in the backseat with the Troll, crying hysterically with hormonal joy, and I was laughing hysterically at the happy absurdity of it all.

Mike Posner - I Took a Pill in Ibiza: Just because it was #1 the week of his birth.

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