Maybe it's a combination of the two - a class with a major project due at the end of the semester where he misunderstood the requirements due to language issues. If the project was going good as far as Fab knew, the problem wouldn't have been discovered until late when he turned it in. Add in some begging for a second chance to do it right and there you go. Does the academic support staff check work or just verify that it's being done?
Doesn't explain why he'd be at practice/Chipotles/airports instead of spending all his time to address this, but I suppose there could be components that he could only work on during certain hours or in conjunction with someone else's schedule, like if there are survey's involved, etc.
