When I was eight, I saw a movie about an island that had an erupting volcano and jungles filled with wild animals. The island was ruled by a beautiful woman called Tondalaya, the Fire Goddess of the Volcano. It was a low-budget(小成本) movie, but to me, it represented the perfect life. But through the years, Tondalaya was forgotten.

    The week I turned 50, my marriage came to a sudden end. My house, furniture and everything I'd owned was sold to pay debts that I didn't even know existed. In a week I had lost my husband, my home and my parents who had refused to accept a divorce (离婚) in the family. I'd lost everything except my four teenage children. I used every penny I had to buy five plane tickets from Missouri to Hawaii. Everyone said I was crazy to think I could just run off to an island and survive. I was afraid they were right.

    I worked 18 hours a day and lost 30 pounds because I lived on one meal a day. One night as I walked alone on the beach, I saw the red orange lava (火山岩) pouring out of Kilauea Volcano in the distance. It was time to live my imagination!

    The next day, I quit my job, bought some art supplies and began doing what I loved. I hadn't painted a picture in 15 years. I wondered if I could still paint. My hands trembled the first time I picked up a brush. But before an hour had passed, I was lost in the colors spreading across the canvas (画布) in front of me. And as soon as I started believing in myself, other people started believing in me, too. The first painting sold for $1,500.

    The past six years have been filled with adventures. My children and I have gone swimming with dolphins, watched whales and hiked around the crater rim (火山口边缘) of the volcano. We wake up every morning with the ocean in front of us and the volcano behind us. The dream I had more than 40 years is now reality. I'm living freely and happily ever after.

    Finding out what kind and how much physical activity you need

    How do I do it?

    It's your choice. Pick an activity that's easy to fit into your life. Do at least 10 minutes of physical activity at a time. Choose aerobic activities that work for you. These make your heart beat faster and can make your heart, lungs, and blood vessels fitter. Also, do strengthening activities which make your muscles do more work than usual.

    Why should I be physically active?

    Physical activity can make you feel stronger and more alive. It is a fun way to be with your family or friends. It also helps you improve your health.

    How many times a week should I keep physically active?

    It is up to you, but it is better to spread your activity throughout the week and to be active at least 3 days a week.

    How do I build up more physical activity?

    Do a little more each time. Once you feel comfortable, do it more often. Then you can trade activities at a moderate level for vigorous ones that take more effort. You can do moderate and vigorous activities in the same week.

    Forcing waiters and waitresses to survive on tips from customers rather than normal wages is a pointless, crude, and unique American custom that, in the past several years, a handful of progressive restaurant owners have attempted to do away with. Danny Meyer, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, is about to join their ranks and has announced that he plans to gradually stop tipping at the company's 13 restaurants.

    What, exactly, is wrong with tipping? As Brian Palmer has explained, more or less it's everything. To start, leaving a waiter's pay in the hands of customers has a feeling of classism (阶级歧视). And in theory, handing restaurant customers the power to tip is at least supposed to motivate better service. This fails in practice because humans turn out to be pretty arbitrary (随意的) about their tipping behavior. Research has shown that the amount diners tip has very little to do with their level of satisfaction. All of this doesn't encourage waiters and waitresses to do anything but turn over as many tables as possible.

    Tipping is also very unfair to kitchen staff. The law allows restaurants to divide tips between front-of-the-house workers like waiters, hosts, hostesses, and bartenders (调酒师), but not cooks. This creates a system in which the people serving the food in a restaurant can earn more than the people preparing it.

    One of the most fascinating parts of Meyer's move is that, unlike some restaurant owners who have taken an anti-tipping stand, he won't simply add a standard extra charge to diners' bills. Rather, Union Square Hospitality Group means to raise menu prices enough to fully cover the cost of a meal. If Meyer manages to move away from tipping at all without hurting his profits, it would almost certainly set the stage for others to follow suit.

    In the coming months, we are bringing together artists from all over the globe, to enjoy speaking Shakespeare's plays in their language, in our Globe, within the architecture Shakespeare wrote for. Please come and join us.

    National Theatre Of China  Beijing｜Chinese

    This great occasion(盛会) will be the National Theatre of China's first visit to the UK. The company's productions show the new face of 21st century Chinese theatre. This production of Shakespeare's Richard III will be directed by the National's Associate Director, Wang Xiaoying.

    Date & Time: Saturday 28 April, 2.30 pm & Sunday 29 April, 1.30 pm & 6.30 pm

Marjanishvili Theatre  Tbilisi｜Georgian

    One of the most famous theatres in Georgia, the Marjanishvili, founded in 1928, appears regularly at theatre festivals all over the world. This new production of As You Like It is helmed(指导) by the company's Artistic Director Levan Tsuladze.

    Date & Time: Friday 18 May, 2.30 pm & Saturday 19 May, 7.30 pm

    Deafinitely Theatre  London｜British Sign Language(BSL)

    By translating the rich and humourous text of Love's Labour's Lost into the physical language of BSL, Deafinitely Theatre creates a new interpretation of Shakespeare's comedy and aims to build a bridge between deaf and hearing worlds by performing to both groups as one audience.

    Date & Time: Tuesday 22 May, 2.30 pm & Wednesday 23 May, 7.30 pm

    Habima National Theatre  Tel Aviv｜Hebrew

    The Habima is the centre of Hebrew-language theatre worldwide. Founded in Moscow after the 1905 revolution, the company eventually settled in Tel Aviv in the late 1920s. Since 1958, they have been recognized as the national theatre of Israel. This production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice marks their first visit to the UK.

    Date & Time: Monday 28 May, 7.30 & Tuesday 29 May, 7.30 pm

    The idea that you can use humor, laughter, and play to make you healthier probably seems too simple to be true. However, it is really true and simple. The sense of humor, laughter and play plays an important part in keeping you healthy.

    Treat the blues with a sense of humor, which is closely tied to laughter. Laughter is infectious. Have you ever heard a big laugh of a young child and been able to keep yourself from smiling? When laughter is shared between people, it makes them closer to each other and increases their happiness. Smiling is the beginning of laughter and a smile is also just as infectious as laughter is. You can experience something by smiling at everyone around you, and you will feel happier just by sharing a smile, even with a stranger.

    Play is an important part of making sure that we stay healthy. We are often encouraged to make sure our children play, and are told of the benefits of being out playing. However, what we often forget is that it is just as important for old people to make play be part of their life as it's for children. Physical play is important for the old and it certainly helps prevent illness. While the studies are still in the early stages, the studies that have been done have shown that physical play certainly plays a part in preventing cognitive (认知的) falling.

    The earliest known copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa—thought to have been painted at the same time as the original masterpiece—has been discovered at the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain. The work offers art-lovers an attractive clue to what the model for the world's most famous painting really looked like. Controllers of the museum found the picture hidden beneath layers of paints during restoration work on a picture initially thought to have been a later replica(exact copy) of the Mona Lisa.

    The restored version shows the same woman that Leonardo depicted (描画), against a landscape similar to that shown in the background of the original, which now hangs in the Louvre in Paris. And while the features of Leonardo's Mona Lisa have been dulled by centuries of dirt and layers of cracked paints—which are unlikely ever to be removed—in the recently-rediscovered copy, she appears fresher-faced and younger than her better-known "twin".

    News of the find was revealed at a meeting at London's National Gallery, linked to its "Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan" exhibition. "This sensational (轰动的) find will transform our understanding of the world's most famous picture," the Art Newspaper reported, adding that the clues found on the Madrid version suggest that the original and the copy were begun at the same time and painted next to each other, as the work went on.

    Miguel Falomir, manager of Italian painting at the Prado, told reporters that expert analysis suggested a strong link between Leonardo and the artist who painted the copy. "The painting was done in the painter's own workshop," he said. "It is absolutely consistent with Leonardo's work, but Leonardo didn't actually do any work on it himself."