only terminal accessible after login

I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 on my HP Mini 1000 - 1116NR. Today when I started it up, it came up with the normal login screen and I logged in, but then all I could access was the terminal, which was docked in the upper left corner of the screen. How do I get out of the terminal, and/or what did I mess up or need to do to fix this? I don't recall doing anything last time I used it other than installing updates.