My plans of going to Florida to see the sun, the surf and to get a tan during spring break were put on hold for yet another year when I learned that my mass communications law class was going to the Supreme Court to meet Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Supreme Court justices don't grant interviews often, so this was an opportunity I couldn't miss.

From the moment the class arrived in the Capitol, I found contradictions between what I expected of the Supreme Court and what I actually saw.

The words "Equal Justice Under Law" are carved in very large letters on the front of the Supreme Court. However, the television reporters' First Amendment rights of free speech and free press don't seem to apply under them.

Reporters are not permitted to shoot pictures in front of the Court without waiting several hours for special permits to be processed.

Consequently, reporters must stand in front of trees down the street from the Court to file their reports. It is possible to get a glimpse of the building from there -- if the reporter stands on the curb and the camera operator stands in traffic, the Supreme Court building can be seen peeking out from the trees.

We arrived during the justices' lunch break, so we headed straight for the Supreme Court snack bar. I didn't think the nation's highest court had a snack bar so I had this perverse desire to order a "Warren Burger on a White bun, hold the mayo." Instead, I just asked for a hamburger.

Just about everything I learned about the Supreme Court in high school was wrong. I expected a very dignified, almost pompous atmosphere, but the cases I saw reminded me of The Gong Show held in the Sistine Chapel.

Just like celebrity judges on The Gong Show, the justices stole the spotlight. I paid more attention to them than to the cases.

Justices Antonin Scalia and John P. Stevens sat in their seats and passed notes back and forth. Chief Justice William Rehnquist got up and left -- just walked out during the middle of one lawyer's argument. Only he and the clerks standing behind the pillars know why.

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Harry A. Blackmun and Byron R. White rocked back and forth in their chairs, their heads sometimes disappearing below the wooden bench.

But Justice O'Connor commanded most of my attention. Our professor had given us a Washington Post Magazine biography about her several weeks before the trip. The article said O'Connor "gave brutally short shrift to attorneys who were unprepared."

She was true to form while we were there.

Throughut the first case we watched, she repeatedly asked a government attorney precisely what the issue being debated was, each time becoming a little louder and a little more red in the face.

Later, O'Connor interrupted the answer to another justice's question. "But that is the exact opposite of what you told me when I asked you a few minutes ago, now what is it?" she asked.

During the second case, Justice Thurgood Marshall stole the show. Near the end of one of the lawyer's statements, Marshall, who had been silent all day, leaned forward.

In his deep, husky voice, Marshall told the lawyer that despite reading the prepared statements and listening to the arguments, he still didn't know what the lawyer wanted. "What do you want us to do?" he asked.

After the arguments were over (and the lawyers scraped themselves off the courtroom floor), we went to meet with O'Connor. I half-expected her courtroom nastiness to carry over into the meeting.

O'Connor, however, spoke with our class for about 20 minutes and amiably answered several questions. Not suprisingly, she wore a conservative black dress with a white scarf. The only jewelry she wore was a turquoise ring on her right hand.

Our meeting passed quickly, and I didn't get to ask a question. I don't think I could have asked her a question with the picture of her cross-examining that lawyer still fresh in my mind.

On the way out, a student asked about her ring.

"It isn't a good piece of turquoise, but it's a piece of home," she said.

That statement made me appreciate something that I hadn't realized.

Sandra Day O'Connor, and other government officials I see on the news or talk about in political science class, are real people.

I might not always agree with what they do, but if I have problems doing my meteorology lab I can see how they could have trouble deciding what's best for a nation.