The recent Los Angeles wildfires remind me of an acquaintance living there. I lost touch with her for almost half a year. She helped me decide to come to Boston.

I met her at the beginning of this year, as the biggest snowstorm in 50 years buried Shanghai. I would be her personal assistant. She was a successful costume designer from Hollywood, and she had worked on tons of films and was nominated twice for an Academy Award. She must have had numerous assistants. I could tell right away that she was unimpressed with me. She wore in a shiny gold vest and sat by her desk. She cast a glance at me and immediately moved to other things. I was just an inexperienced college student who accidentally fell into this job. I had no clue what lay ahead of me.

In the following months, I almost never satisfied her needs. The feeling of frustration overwhelmed me. I thought she was a picky and arrogant artist, and that made her difficult to get along with. The only moment she smiled and hugged me was the day that I told her that I would go to BU. She excitedly told me that her sister, who is a judge, also went there. However, I lost contact with her about six months ago. I recently realized how important her influence was upon my life.

I see many precious qualities of an artist in her. Although her perfectionism can be annoying and troublesome to others, I envy her compulsiveness.

The first impressive quality is her habit of putting work at the top of her priority list. She can get as little as three hours of sleep (or even no sleep at all) for many days and still be energetic during the day. I never heard her talking about holiday. Even when we went out on weekends, she kept looking for ideas and talking about work. When something related to work occurred to her, she would immediately stop whatever was at hand and go right back to work.

If we were watching Peking Opera, she would study the costumes rather than enjoy the story. If we went shopping, she would always buy something for the film rather than for herself. I was constantly amazed by her endless passion for her job. Only after meeting her did I realize that I have never truly dedicated myself to anything.

Although she was a demanding person that annoyed me from time to time, there were certain moments that I felt she was the most adorable person in the world. For example, on a freezing February morning I saw her standing alone in the wind looking at something. It was the ashes of firecrackers that people burned the night before, which was Chinese New Year’s Eve. She was so obsessed with the ashes that she forgot the time until co-workers dragged her back to the office. “What exactly were you doing?” we asked. “It was beautiful!” she said, and she tried to get rid of us so that she could go back to the ashes. She is three times my age, but she is younger than I am in heart.

When she heard that I had a thing for photography, she took it seriously and recommended many schools to me. She criticized my way of treating my portfolio — in an indifferent and careless way. She showed me how she treated her work — with diligence.

She once asked me if I would visit her after I came to Boston, and I feel guilty that I haven’t contacted her in the past three months. But I’ve been thinking about her constantly. I reference her way of doing things in my own work. She is a role model and a source of inspiration.

I was deeply sorry to hear about the wildfires, and the first thing came to my mind was her condition. I wish soon I could see her again, bringing my best work and what I’ve learned here with me so I could show her how she had influenced me in a positive way.