Could use your help here. We are working on an image for our science club, and even though I understand vector art programs Inkscape is stumping me in a few areas. Please see the image as I explain where I am running into problems.

First, I am trying to make a circle out of the two arrows, so in inkscape I tried to cut an ellipse in half and then I was going to take the path, duplicate it and make it 80% of the original, then group the two and flip them, and I would have my circle arrows. Well, I cannot find any way to cut a circle, so I took the path tool, and did my best at creating a circle, and as you can see it turned out to be more of a horseshoe.
Second, I tried to attach the text to the path. Unless I am doing something wrong, that is pretty much a catastrophe, and it takes a buttload of work arounds tryin to manipulate the text into postion. If anyone has any good workarounds where you can line that text up decently please pass them on.
The third area I am running into problems, is that I want the arrows to intersect the maroon box, and cut it out. I have tried the different path tools, union, difference etc. but none of them give me what I want, anyone have feedback on what I might be doing wrong here?
Thank you for your time,
Dave