Trying to gather the courage to ask my grad school advisor (who can be a bit terrifying) for a letter of recommendation for a PhD program. I'm not so much scared she'll say no as that she'll want to meet. Last time I met her to try to ask for job search advice, I ended up breaking down crying because she said some things that hurt my feelings. Note that I did well in the program, and she seemed to like me OK--she's just notorious for being rather intimidating (and making people cry).

I'm mostly afraid she'll be like, "If you were really dedicated enough to do a PhD program, you would have somehow managed to find a job in your field by now. What, you gave up looking for a while, partly due to frustration because you got one interview for like 75 applications? And partly because you wanted to focus on your daughter? Still, not dedicated enough!"

Also, I'm probably completely insane for applying for a PhD program at age 40 (that wouldn't start till next fall)--plus one is at a rather prestigious school (the other is a state school that's pretty good, too), so who knows if I'd even get in. Especially because it requires GREs (master's program didn't) and...I don't seem to recall stuff like, say, algebra based on the GRE test book I have (not worried about the other two parts).