macbook help! spinning pinwheel of death

[rosester]

Hi there. I have a macbook that I just recently bought in August, and this morning when I went to turn it on everything was fine at first; I logged in alright, and then my dock loaded so I thought everything was okay. Then, the top Finder bar popped up too, but I noticed the date and time weren't showing up, and same with all my icons on my desktop. Then the spinning pinwheel of death came up. So I held down the power button, waited a few minutes, and booted it back up. Same thing happened and has been happening every time I reboot it, except sometimes my dock doesn't show up. What do I do? Should I just leave it alone for a little while and try again later? Also, sometimes the mouse icon comes up and the pinwheel stops, but I still don't have the time and date, and it won 't let me click on any applications. Help!